Salthill

markbau

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Quite a few years ago I purchased a safelight from a company whose name I'm pretty sure was "Salthill" It was a great safelight, quite different to the norm. Is this company still around, I just googled it and can't find anything.

Mark
 

mike c

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They made alot of high end expensive darkroom equipment ,but I believe they are no longer in business. Made great stuff though.

mike c.
 

mike c

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Mark,just looked up Salthill in Large format photography and found A few words about them,one was they are no more.

mike c.,
 

Oren Grad

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SaltHill is long out of business. Here's an article from long ago in the NYT, if you're curious about who SaltHill was:

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DAP

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The company is long gone. As far as warranty work is concerned...I think you are out of luck. I have a couple of Salthill easels and one of their print dryers. Their equipment is top notch, but unfortunately pretty rare on the second hand market (probably due to the fact that not much of it is out there along with the fact that the owners of it are very reluctant to sell it). When you do actually see Salthill gear for sale it still demands a rather large premium.
 

PHOTOTONE

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DAP said:
The company is long gone. As far as warranty work is concerned...I think you are out of luck.
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That basically is the point I was making with my question. "Lifetime Warranties" are really not worth the paper they are printed on, and should not be a deciding factor in a purchase.
 
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markbau

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Oren Grad said:
SaltHill is long out of business. Here's an article from long ago in the NYT, if you're curious about who SaltHill was:

Dead Link Removed
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Thanks very much for finding and posting that, interesting read BUT it reminded me that I had a Salthill alignment tool which quite simply was the best enlarger tool in the world!! (IMHO) I just realised that I didn't get it when I split up from the ex so sadly that would be in a landfill in Colorado now! Damn.

Mark
 

jeroldharter

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I always found Salthill products intriguing and far outside my budget at the time. Since then I have tried to pick up whatever gear I can.

I bought an 11x14 print washer and did not like it. Despite being very heavy, it was fragile because the acrylic "tubes" on the inside crack. I could never get it to work well and it is sitting out in my garage. Fortunately it was not too expensive used.

More recently, I picked up a Salthill Electroluminescent Safelight which is quite the toy. Beautiful modern design and reasonably bright. Fits in small places but not hanging from the ceiling - needs to be on a surface. Kind of like a mini Thomas safelight with a much quieter buzzing sound so it is not offensive. My Thomas safelight could light a parking lot and sounds like it too. So thumbs up on the safelight.

I have never seen a Salthill enlarger and have never seen one for sale. Anybody use one?
 
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markbau

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I loved the safelight although I recall the bit where the arm hinged to the base broke and I couldn't get it repaired.

What is a state of the art safelight now? Or is the old faithful from Kodak still the go? I'm getting back into darkroom work after about 10 years and I'm still getting up to speed on what's what these days.

mark
 

Martin Reed

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jeroldharter said:
I have never seen a Salthill enlarger and have never seen one for sale. Anybody use one?
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We actually have a brand new one in the box that we took in shortly before Saltser packed the company in. We haven't made any moves to sell it, primarily because of the inability to provide any sort of guarantee. If anyone wants to take it 'as is' I suppose we could do a good deal on it.

It's certainly an unorthodox machine, the 'B&O' of enlargers, the main feature being that the light source is in the control box and piped into the head via fibre optic. Rumour has it that the complexity of manufacturing it was what brought the company down; all their other products such as easels would have been more basic to manufacture.

The easels are a beautiful design, bty, snap one up if you find it at a good price.
 

Martin Reed

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Tom Kershaw said:
Martin,

What was the advantage moving the light source out of the enlarger head?

Tom.
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It removed the problem of vibration from the cooling fan, and it gave more useful extension height, as the head height could be reduced to a minimum. There were some other innovative things, like no bellows, but a black felt lined sliding box light trap. It would be interesting to get some feedback from someone who uses one as to how well they work.
 
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markbau

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Tom Kershaw said:
Martin,

Do you have any photos of the Salthill enlarger?

Tom.
Click to expand...

I don't but if you have some approx 10 year old issues of "Darkroom & Creative Camera Technique" lying around you'll probably find an ad for them, I'd dig mine out for you but they are still in storage.

I went really close to buying one but I think they were about twice the price of a LPL 4500 which is what I ended up buying when I went to 4x5.

I seem to recall D&CCT giving it a pretty good review. It certainly was ahead of its time, damn shame the company went under, the owner was a terrific bloke to talk with, ultra helpful.
 
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