Thank you in advance for these; they really do help.
Not at all important. The goal is small prints. No need for wall projection to do that.
Same for me. That being said, I ran a calculation to see how large the system could theoretically print...and it's looking like it'll be somewhere around 20" by 25" if I keep everything in basically the same arrangement that currently exists with the first-version parts in place.
Whatever travel is required to make an 8x10 print from a 4x5 negative with a 150mm enlarging lens would be more than adequate. Plus a bit more to enable cropping.
That would probably be no more than 18" off the easel as a rough guess; I ran out of math doing the previous equation.
Not important at all. I don't have nor do I intend to obtain a 3-D printer.
Noted; it's not a tool that everyone has, or even needs.
Well, hopefully it'll only take a few minutes, regardless, should anyone want to do it...but since the 45 will pretty much do whatever the 23C will do, I'm not sure why anyone would undo the conversion. But, my not being sure on that point probably just means that I'm not thinking of something that's perfectly obvious to others.
Cool. Hopefully it won't be needed.
Well definitely let me know when you catch something.
Diy, modern source (Heiland, and who else?), existing used? so many choices. I think every brand had a head or light source at one point.
I'll probably DIY an LED head for my own use, but I'm also trying to think in a larger envelope. Simplest would be a bulb and some diffusion material in the condenser head; most complex would be literally
none of that....but the lure of being forevermore-lazy with my split printing is so very strong...
You could completely ignore the pivot capability. I think another forum member alluded to this as well.
Well, yes and no...
The pivot points on both the 23C and the 45 are used for adjusting the overall parallelism of the assembly, as well as wall projection. So, I could absolutely hard-mount the stage mounting bar to some kind of bracket and call it done, but if anything at all was out of alignment there'd be no fixing it. To prevent that problem, I need to maintain the adjustment capabilities on the stage mounting bar. The 23C has a bracket that holds the pivot shaft, and the mounting screws for said bracket offer some adjustability for side-to-side alignment. Conversely, on the 45, the main 3/8-16 mounting bolt actually handles a lot of that job by itself; since it's a single pivot point the entire condenser and negative stage assembly tends to hang mostly-vertically, even with no other attitude control in the mix.
Pictured: Such like as this here.
That 0.0-degree measurement is in reference to the table the enlarger is currently clamped-to, but it would be the same for any other surface...and I took that measurement with literally no pitch/yaw control of any sort being used. The two lower stages are just kind of hanging out, right there; they're mounted to the stock 23C pivot shaft with the PETG test mounts.
Anyways: to adjust and lock in the side-to-side alignment of those stages on the 45 chassis, you just loosen/adjust/tighten the two countersunk 8-32 screws located lower on the stage mounting bar, and to adjust alignment front-to-rear you just use the adjusting screw. It's a pretty trim little system, so I'm doing my best to maintain it despite scrapping literally every part of it.
Now, wall-projection is a different matter entirely. It was definitely a feature on the original narrow-chassis 45AF, and likely on the 45H as well; I've found some old literature confirming it, and which also seems to indicate that the aforementioned 8-32 screws had to be removed in order to accomplish it. An article on the 45AF from Modern Photography in 1959 states
"And if you can't get a large enough print the normal way, it takes only a few seconds to loosen the two screws behind the lens stage and swing the entire enlarger into position for horizontal projection." The only two screws that it
could be referencing - assuming a similar stage mounting bar - are the 8-32s that control parallelism; there aren't any others...and I mention this fact because from this one sentence it's clear that on the oldest of the 45 chassis there was a pivot point located somewhere around the top of the negative stage that was playing the exact same role as it is on my later MCRX head. It's been a dual-purpose mounting/adjusting arrangement from the beginning, I think.
All of this being said: even though I'm not super-excited about wall-projecting anything, I did a lot of measuring and I realized that it's actually within the realm of possibility, even with the narrow 23C chassis. The main issue is that the 45 head has some adjustment/control levers/knobs that project too far outwards from the stage bodies to fit between the chassis rails; rearranging them would solve this issue. A custom shaft that relocates the upper negative stage adjustment knob to the right side of the head would fix 90% of the clearance problems, and if any remained - questionable, that - they would revolve around the stage opening lever; a different-shaped bar would solve that problem. So, it could be done...but I probably won't tackle it right now unless people chime in with torches and pitchforks.
have you checked out KHB Photographix? If nothing else, the website is a good resource and may have pictures of various parts/pieces. There's also the Ollinger site:
I have! I actually found the 45H manual on KHB's site this morning, so I paid them some monies, and whenever the manual actually arrives I'll be able to hopefully avoid re-inventing the wheel. The article I quoted was one that I found on a web search, but which I then found on Ollinger's site as well; should've looked there first. Thanks for suggesting them!
Also, in case anyone's wondered about it: the chassis stock of the 23C and the 45 are the
exact same dimensions. That's an off-topic aside, but I thought I'd mention it.