Thomas Duplex - to refurb or not to refurb?

I scored this on eBay last week for $50 with free shipping. Seems to work perfectly, except the filters are worn. The yellow edge filters in the body are crinkly, and the red edge filters in the doors are swirled with dark lines. How necessary is it to clean these, and what material should I replace it with? Some years ago I owned another one of these, and refurbished the filters with red gel material I ordered from B&H, but if it's not necessary to do so then I'm going to skip the trouble this time.

The Naked Photographer (our Greg Davis) has a video on YouTube about making your own filters for these. Haven't watched it -- I'll probably never own one of those (my darkroom has a low ceiling and I've gone LED for my safelights).

Sweet! Thanks!

I think there is a thread somewhere here at Photrio or maybe LFF where someone figured out the Rosco or Lee gels to restore the filters. I checked Freestyle and they have the Thomas branded filter sets, but last time I checked they were about $80 each. I need to do this myself on my Thomas.

Thanks to the Naked dude.... Its Rosco Fire #19, Roscosun CTO #3407, and Roscosun 85 n.6 #3406.

As I recall, I remade mine with hardware store glass and rubylith. But, as I understand, it's the wavelength of the bulb itself which makes it "safe".

The filters both attenuate the light (necessary in some cases to avoid fogging even with a "safe" wavelength) and block the low-power additional emission lines (low pressure sodium has other emission than the two close lines about 565 nm, and if the light is bright, they may fog materials that are completely blind to 565).

ChristopherCoy said:

I scored this on eBay last week for $50 with free shipping. Seems to work perfectly, except the filters are worn. The yellow edge filters in the body are crinkly, and the red edge filters in the doors are swirled with dark lines. How necessary is it to clean these, and what material should I replace it with? Some years ago I owned another one of these, and refurbished the filters with red gel material I ordered from B&H, but if it's not necessary to do so then I'm going to skip the trouble this time.

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That's a steal!
It probably cost just under $50. to ship it - that thing is heavy.

I bought mine new, many, many years ago (1970's?). I recently refurbished it with the Rosco filters mentioned above. The light is so bright, even when the vanes are dropped, that I put mine as far away from the enlargers as I could because the brightness was interfering with my ability to focus on the easel.

Off hand, I can no recall the two gels needed to make the filtration, which I am using, but, the are simple "stage lighting" sheets, both Rosco and were about $9 each at the local Barbizon Stage Lighting Store, a few years ago, when I replaced my Thomas light filters.

Have a good flat, cut proof or sacrificial and clean surface to work on, before you lay these out, and a new scalpel blade for the cutting, as well as a long rule.

Wear gloves and do no touch your face while working; this is a quick job, but do no try cutting more than one layer of gel, at a time.

Your new filters will last years in most cases.

If I find my notes on which filters I used, I'll post them bellows.

Congratulations on your new light.