Questions about Eastman Model D autofocus enlarger

[adelorenzo]

I recently rescued one of these beasts from a friend's garage. I've disassembled and cleaned it up, got the head moving smoothly, rewired the lamp, fabricated a lens board and obtained a lens. Even thought it's made for 5x7, I've removed all the masking attachments and plan to try using this with whole plate negatives as the opening is more than large enough.

I plan to replace the extremely hot photoflood bulb (it feels like it almost melts the negative) with an LED which will hopefully keep the temperature down.

Information seems to be scarce online. I am still trying to figure some stuff out so if anyone can help with these questions I would really appreciate it. A link to a manual would be awesome.

1. Testing the lamp with a lens but without any negative looks like a pretty serious hot spot in the middle. Was there some kind of diffusion material in there somewhere? Heat resistant glass maybe?
2. I would imagine that this was made to operate with something like a 210mm lens. I have a 300mm APO Nikkor and I wonder if I'll be able to focus the enlarger.
3. Was there some kind of a baseboard? Or does the easel sit right on the metal base?

Any information, opinions or questions most welcome.

 

[adelorenzo]

Progress so far:

It looks like there was room to fit some kind of diffusion material in there. I've put one layer of satin etched glass in there and may add a second if it still seems too hot. There seems to be a place made for the glass to sit. So far the glass hasn't shattered from the serious heat that bulb throws off.

I now have the enlarger fully operational except I can't focus the 300mm lens. With the adjustments maxed (there are two separate adjustment) I can't get enough bellows out on the auto focus. So I'm either going to have to de-couple the autofocus mechanism or find a more suitable lens.

I will post pictures to this thread when I have a chance to try to add some information to the Internets. Really not much out there at all.

 

[ic-racer]

Yes, I think you need a 7 1/2" lens (190mm) to autofocus that. There was a thread somewhere, let me see if I can find it...

The 300mm takes 600mm bellows draw to focus at 1:1 and just over 300mm to focus a wall-sized mural; do you have that much bellows draw?

If yours is the diffusion head, it may be similar to this in construction (note diffusion and heat absorbing glass):


This may be the lens needed:

 

[adelorenzo]

Thanks for posting that. Not my head exactly but I expect it is a similar set-up although I don't believe there was a cooling unit on this one. Most of the negative stage area is made of wood. I should probably put a layer of heat absorbing glass above the frosted glass but I doubt my local glass shop will have anything. Right now I'm using two peices of glass for the negative carrier, which helps protect the negative from heat.

Not sure about bellows throw for the 300mm, probably not enough. My next longest enlarger lens is a 150mm which I suppose I could try to see if it covers.