Someone please rescue this 10"x10" enlarger before it is literally sold as scrap metal.

dcy

Subscriber
Joined
May 9, 2025
Messages
451
Location
New Mexico, USA
Format
35mm
I have no affiliation with this. Someone posted about this on Reddit and I found the link:



Unique desk for photo enthusist - photo/video - by owner - electronics sale - craigslist

Very Unique Desk......actually was a 10x10 photo enlarger, now I use it as my desk. The "desk" raises and lowers to meet your needs. The head also raises and lowers. I was thinking of adding a light...
sfbay.craigslist.org

If any of you lives around the SF Bay Area, perhaps you can save it? If it's in working order I imagine you can sell it to someone looking an enlarger.
 

MattKing

Moderator
Moderator
Joined
Apr 24, 2005
Messages
52,890
Location
Delta, BC Canada
Format
Medium Format
Thread title updated to potentially drive interest.
 

MattKing

Moderator
Moderator
Joined
Apr 24, 2005
Messages
52,890
Location
Delta, BC Canada
Format
Medium Format
It is a Durst, but I can't read the model number.
 

MTGseattle

Subscriber
Joined
Dec 8, 2013
Messages
1,383
Location
Seattle
Format
Multi Format
It looks like "Durst color laborator 184" to me. Don't those have external power supplies and such?
if this was in Seattle, I'd be there.
 

Kino

Subscriber
Joined
Jan 20, 2006
Messages
7,758
Location
Orange, Virginia
Format
Multi Format
"Durst Color Labrador 184"
 

DREW WILEY

Member
Joined
Jul 14, 2011
Messages
13,930
Format
8x10 Format
I live very close, but simply don't have room for yet another Durst enlarger, or the time to recondition another one. The colorhead itself appears to be missing. Apparently no neg carrier or lens either. These things are quite heavy; you need a serious truck and some help.
 
Last edited:

Kino

Subscriber
Joined
Jan 20, 2006
Messages
7,758
Location
Orange, Virginia
Format
Multi Format
It's like the 16/35mm Oxberry Master Animation Stand with rear screen projection I desperately tried to give away after my divorce.

$30K animation stand sold for $500 in scrap. I cried over that one...
 

MattKing

Moderator
Moderator
Joined
Apr 24, 2005
Messages
52,890
Location
Delta, BC Canada
Format
Medium Format
I've been in contact with the person who posted the Craigslist listing and encouraged them to reach out.
There is no colour head with it.
 

DREW WILEY

Member
Joined
Jul 14, 2011
Messages
13,930
Format
8x10 Format
I was offered for free about 24 working commercial enlargers, mostly Durst. I took just one. That was hard enough for six of us to carry out of the downtown basement where the lab had been, and then into my own digs. Two still remain there in that basement, including a $75,000 horizontal Durst unit. The rest went to landfill. Just selling off the accessories would have brought in many thousands of dollars; but the owner also had other lines of business which brought him in hundreds of millions of dollars, so that was just junk at that point to him.

I was also given a 22ft long deluxe process camera with a bellows big enough to walk through if it had been capable of holding the weight of man. I cannibalized its lenses and the big precision machined pin-registered vac easel. The rest went to the dump. Could have had also kinds of things for free, even a well maintained 50 inch Kreonite RA4 processor. No place to put it.
 

GregY

Member
Joined
Apr 12, 2005
Messages
3,336
Location
Alberta
Format
Large Format
Unfortunately these days a 10x10 enlarger is a bit of a white elephant. With the cost of 8x10 film as well as enlarging paper......there are likely fewer people enlarging.
It's not really a convenient size for working with smaller film formats....
Hopefully someone will give it a home.....but likely a slim chance
 

koraks

Moderator
Moderator
Joined
Nov 29, 2018
Messages
22,764
Location
Europe
Format
Multi Format
Yeah, it's a beast alright. There's not all that many people who are setting up darkrooms to begin with and the vast majority prefer to stick to smaller enlargers up to medium format. There are several drawbacks to a machine this size; ceiling clearance is an issue, and they often have heads designed for ridiculously high-powered (by today's standards) bulbs that are often expensive and/or hard to obtain. Then there's the whole business of completing the outfit in case stuff like negative carriers etc. are not included in the package. And I'd rather not be the guy who is tasked with transporting it to its next home...not to mention that it'll probably not fit in most family cars to begin with.

GregY said:
Hopefully someone will give it a home.....but likely a slim chance
Click to expand...
I'm afraid so. For every 100 darkroom enthusiasts clamoring that this should be picked up because it's unique, shouldn't be allowed to go to waste etc., it tends to be very difficult to find only one who's actually willing to move away from the computer and into the car. It's a classic case of NIMDR (Not In My DarkRoom).
 

MattKing

Moderator
Moderator
Joined
Apr 24, 2005
Messages
52,890
Location
Delta, BC Canada
Format
Medium Format
I swear I've seen a thread here in the last year with someone asking help finding one
 

mshchem

Subscriber
Joined
Nov 26, 2007
Messages
14,635
Location
Iowa City, Iowa USA
Format
Medium Format

I've driven a couple times over the years. Nothing transcontinental. I got my 5x7 and 8x10 Zone VI enlargers this way. Beautiful machines hardly used. I drove to Arkansas for a Beseler adjus-a-table, now I have 3 of them

It would take a freight company to move all my stuff. And it's nice, clean and fully functional.
 

ic-racer

Member
Joined
Feb 25, 2007
Messages
16,544
Location
USA
Format
Multi Format
Durst L184 are harder to come by these days. Perhaps one of the best 8x10 enlargers on the used market, seeing as it is all manual (compared to the L1840). I'm not familiar with the light source on that one, but the enlarger accepts many different styles of light source.
 

DREW WILEY

Member
Joined
Jul 14, 2011
Messages
13,930
Format
8x10 Format
Put a pancake style LED or cold light head on it, in lieu of the tall mirror box and a colorhead, and you might be able to get in a typical height room. But these almost instantly flip to horizontal usage, which would easily be accommodated by typical ceiling height.

The original colorhead was probably a CLS 301, which needs only two very common affordable ELH halogen reflector bulbs.
From the look of it, besides a head, refurbishing would probably require bellows replacement (about $200) and finding a neg carrier (anywhere from free to a thousand or more dollars), plus re-lubrication, and ideally a bit of easy rewiring for direct voltage. The cooling fan per se requires 240 voltage; the rest runs 110, provided there aren't additional issues. Lenses aren't necessarily expensive; you'd need lens rings too. It would make a deluxe 4x5 or 5x7 setup too, not just for 8x10. For MF, you'd need an inverted lens cone.

This isn't going into anyone's car unless the sections are broken down. Rent a truck if you don't have one. There are actually several L184's still in storage in this area. It's possible that a few of them will see a second life as the big labs begin to revive somewhat. The wild card at this point is the cost of b&w printing paper, with dreaded tariffs still to kick in. That could make enlarged optical mural printing awfully expensive.
 
Last edited:

qqphot

Subscriber
Joined
Jul 12, 2022
Messages
220
Location
San Francisco, CA, USA
Format
35mm RF
This is how I got my Durst L184 too - someone trying desperately to find it a home with the closing of a commercial lab. And oddly, from a location very close to where this one is, but many years ago.
 

GregY

Member
Joined
Apr 12, 2005
Messages
3,336
Location
Alberta
Format
Large Format

I once picked up a very large Ademco drymount press in Longmont Colorado. I had been looking for a used press for several years without luck. It's over a 1000 miles from my home in Canada, but I was on the way back from a trip to New Mexico. It easily weighs 150+ lbs and takes two people to move it. Filled up the back of my small SUV. My second one (Seal) came from the next town over ...
Some photographic items are worth suffering for....
 
Last edited:

DREW WILEY

Member
Joined
Jul 14, 2011
Messages
13,930
Format
8x10 Format
What bothered me more was the toss away of all kinds of 4x5 and 8x10 neg carriers, along with their AN glass, both Omega F and Durst. I have plenty of nice carriers for my own use; but people are always scrounging for the AN glass, and the type both Omega and Durst used was the very best, with no direct equivalent today. I could have had the whole nine yards if I had rented a storage space or taken over that commercial lab - but why would I want to do that, when I was already planning to and that whole line of business was shrinking anyway? Four pro enlargers are already plenty enough for me. ... Now I wonder what will happen to all of the fancy digital and studio gear now that the same owner has finally himself retired at well over 80.
 

Pioneer

Member
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
3,879
Location
Elko, Nevada
Format
Multi Format
Very nice looking enlarger but I already have a Beseler 4x5, a Leitz Focomat V35 and an old Elwood 8x10 that I am just now starting to restore just because it looks so awesome. But the one I use the most by far is my little Intrepid Enlarger just because I can easily move it in and out of my little bathroom just like my old Graflex enlarger back that I foolishly sold.

Good luck on that Durst.
 

btaylor

Subscriber
Joined
Dec 28, 2010
Messages
2,253
Location
Los Angeles
Format
Large Format
It’s sad when these older precision pieces of gear are tossed. I had a shot at a local fully functional Durst 8x10 with a nice color head a decade ago- but didn’t want to go through the 220v install and transport costs, and it was just HUGE. Ended up driving up the coast to pick up an Omega F. Got the base and condenser head in the SUV and strapped the column to the roof.
I hope someone gets this beast!
 

pentaxuser

Member
Joined
May 9, 2005
Messages
19,941
Location
Daventry, No
Format
35mm
GregY said:
Unfortunately these days a 10x10 enlarger is a bit of a white elephant. With the cost of 8x10 film as well as enlarging paper......there are likely fewer people enlarging.
Click to expand...

There still seem to be some about who are both rich and enjoy enlarging. I can think of names but it might embarrass them to say who

pentaxuser
 

logan2z

Subscriber
Joined
Jan 11, 2019
Messages
3,716
Location
SF Bay Area, USA
Format
Multi Format
I saw this on my local Craigslist a few days ago while trolling the listings for darkroom gear. As others have said, this is going to be a tough one. It’s a massive piece of equipment that will need some restoration and will only appeal to the very few. I’m afraid this one is destined for the landfill.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register
Cookies are required to use this site. You must accept them to continue using the site. Learn more…