Help wanted to align De Vere 504 in Melbourne Australia, will pay in beer!

[gamincurieux]

Help wanted to align De Vere 504 in Melbourne Australia, will pay in beer!

[gamincurieux]

While I'm at it, does anyone know if there is an 'oversized' 35mm mask available for this enlarger? You know, so I can print with black neg edge borders. And, if they do, can you get it with glass?

[Ian David]

Hi, if you want an oversized 35mm mask, you will probably need to find a normal one and file it out. Or if you are happy with even black edges, get a set of glass neg holders. The glass neg holders (one plain piece, one anti-newton piece) were available from Odyssey Sales in the UK - I assume they still are.

Ian

[gamincurieux]

Thank you Ian. I want to avoid filing out the perfectly good 35mm mask I have if I can avoid it (just in case I want to sell again down the track... FYI, this is a COMPLETE De Vere 504/Varicon setup I just bought, all condensers/masks/everything, so I'm going to look into the glass with Odyssey.

[Ian Grant]

I have an alignment negative designed for getting the base board level and correctly aligned, it's actually a glass plate but I guess I could copy it. However I'm not back in the UK for about 4 weeks.

Essentially you want an accurate negative or positive with a rectangle & some alignment points you could use a computer to draw up your own, and if you have a glass carrier system print on clear film, 5x4.

To use you measure the width both ends of the long sides of the rectangle, and the same the short, then tweak until when these are identical then the base board is parallel to the negative carrier. A final check is to measure the two diagonals these need to be identical.

A large sheet of paper and a pencil makes the job very quick and you don't really need a ruler as you can just pencil mark the measurement of one end and rotate 180 degrees.

If you set the enlarger up with a large spirit level first, the feet are adjustable, you can get the baseboard extremely close the same way.

It sounds far harder than it is in practice.

Ian

[Ross Chambers]

While I'm at it, does anyone know if there is an 'oversized' 35mm mask available for this enlarger? You know, so I can print with black neg edge borders. And, if they do, can you get it with glass?

Perhaps not the most pro, but I had to print a 6x9 cm neg as a favour.

I didn't have the (probably unobtainable) DeVere mask and not wanting to try to find one for such limited use I made one from mat board. The sliding masks in the head and a 4 blade easel gave me sharp edges.

Regards - Ross

[gamincurieux]

I hear you Ross, but I always print with the black edge, so I'll be doing my best to find either the proper mask or the glass inserts, which come to think of it glass would be preferable as I do use a 4-blade easel. Would be good to have the film as flat as can be, having had glass all the while til now.

[gamincurieux]

Glass would probably aid alignment too I guess.

[dng88]

I am not very good in DIY and hence just order Versalab Parallel. Not yet arrived for my Beseler 4x5 but I hope it work.

[gamincurieux]

I would've thought I could do this by sight, as long as I know what I'm doing with the various points of the enlarger's construction that will allow adjustment..... and this is what I'm unfamiliar with.