Several years ago I became interested in the old Graflarger backs built by the
Graflex Company. I already had an old Speed Graphic that I had purchased from a
press photographer in Key West Florida when I was stationed there as a Navy
photographer.
After reading an article about the Graflarger system, and having limited
funds, I decided I was going to build my own simple enlarger. I thought about the
basic concept and decided all I really needed was a lamp house and a mount. I
must tell you my first attempt was a dismal failure, as you can see by the
illustration below.
This first attempt was simply a metal lined wooden box with a ceramic lamp
socket stuck through the top and a PH-212 enlarger bulb placed in the socket. I
built a negative carrier with a piece of translucent white Plexiglas on top and a
piece of 1/4 inch thick glass on the bottom. The Plexiglas was used to diffuse
the light and spread it evenly across the entire surface of the negative. To use
the enlarger I would simply mount it on a tripod and print away. I found,
however, that if I wanted to print anything but a 4 x 5 inch sheet of film I had
to do considerable masking of the negative carrier to do so. Also the unit was
not very stable. Next I refined this system by buying an actual Graflarger back.
If you aren't familiar with this unit, it is a light source that was designed to
mount to a Speed Graphic equipped with a Graflok back. You simply took the ground
glass assembly off and placethe enlarger head on the back of the camera. The head
contains an Aristo Cold light lamp inside it. These lamps are gas filled tubes
that produce a nice even illumination over the entire surface of the negative
with the aid of a piece of diffusion glass. I built a mount for it as shown in
the next diagram.
The mount is simply a wooden structure with holes drilled in the riser and a
single hole drilled through the horizontal mounting bracket. A bolt is placed
through the holes in both of these to hold the bracket at the desired height.
While this system worked great for most things it had its drawbacks. First and
foremost, since the cold light was a blue lamp it did not work well with
polycontrast or multi-grade paper that uses a series of magenta or yellow filters
to change the contrast of the paper. Also I found I again needed to do
considerable masking of anything other than 4 x 5 negatives.
Now we come to the final and best generation of this enlarger. I found an
Omega D2 enlarger Variable condenser head assembly in a pile of "throw aways"
from a photographer who was retiring. I obtained this unit (for free I might add)
from this gentleman. And decided I would incorporate the Speed Graphic with this
head assembly and build me a top notch Variable condenser enlarger. I first
removed the back from the Speed by removing the six screws that holds it to the
camera to give me a flat surface.
Next I built a new horizontal mounting bracket for the existing enlarger base.
The new mount has two vertical risers that the enlarger heads mounting bars are
passed through.
Since the Speed has two mounting holes one on one side and the other on the
bottom of the camera. I built a new mounting bracket for the camera shaped in an
L with holes drilled in the wood to mount the camera with both holes. This keeps
the camera straighter and provides additional stability to the entire
structure.
Once the camera mount is built then add the vertical risers to it. These
should be solid but it is not imperative that they be built of armor plate. Mine
are simply 1x2 strips and are mounted to the base with screws; in fact the entire
structure is assembled with screws as they provide more structural stability than
nails. If you use screws you will need to counter-sink them so everything will
mount up flush. Once the risers are mounted you will need to add a little
additional bracing so the structure will support the weight of the entire
assembly. Below is a drawing of the completed assembly from two different angles.
On the top of the camera mount assembly where the Graflok back used to be I
placed and screwed down the original enlarger top plate, which receives the
negative carriers, mount this to the L-shaped bracket, not the camera.
This unit solves several of the aforementioned problems of the previous
generations of Speed Graphic enlargers. Since it uses a PH-212 enlarger bulb and
a condenser assembly instead of a diffusion system it provides even illumination
and avoids the lower contrast associated with diffusion enlargers. This enlarger
allows for the use of multi-contrast papers using VC filters. Since the Omega has
a wide variety of negative carriers and negative transport devices it eliminates
all that time consuming and maddening masking of the previous versions.
I have included on the next pages of this little article a diagram of the
entire completed enlarger assembly, and drawings for the base.
Here are a few hints for building this enlarger. First the old adage of
Measure twice cut once is an imperative to this project. Make the unit as strong
as possible but also try to keep the weight down. To check the geometry of the
unit mock up subassemblies whenever possible before assembling or drilling holes.
Place the lift arm assembly in the top mounting position on the riser. It is much
easier to pull up the assembly than it is to try and push it up. Pushing tends to
make the assembly want to bind. If you can find a large 24-inch paper cutter for
cheap I recommend using that for the base of the enlarger. Just place it on top
of the baseboard. This will allow you to cut larger sizes of paper as you work so
you can get test strips or 2 5x8 pieces from an 8x10. Do not mount the riser to
the cutter you will lose too much work area and it will be too hard to use the
cutter. Do not make any permanent changes to the Speed as it will lose its value
and will not be able to be used as a camera again. If you have a speed with a
bellows that has some minor light leaks this would be a great use for that old
camera. Simply tape up the holes with some gaffers tape and go to town.
There are no hard and fast measurements to this project, but remember the
following. The size of the maximum enlargement you can make will be dictated by
the size of the base for your enlarger, and the height of the riser. These
dimensions will be greatly affected by the size of your darkroom.
The hardest part of the project was figuring the attachment of the enlarger
head to the mount. I recommend building the base for the camera first. Then
attach the top plate for the negative carriers. After this point I placed the
enlarger head on the top plate and positioned it so it was centered on the
camera, this is imperative! Once it is centered then you can figure out where the
bars must pass through the uprights. (See illustration). You must be somewhat
careful about this measurement and placement as there is little clearance even
using 1/2 inch plywood for the part that the bars pass through.
Since the brackets the bar stock pass through have a hole in them mount the
brackets to the enlarger head and then place the bracket against the riser and
mark the position through the hole. The bottom bracket should mount a little
ahead of the top bracket on the upright. Drill through both left and right
brackets at the same time as these holes must match up as nearly perfect as
possible. With a little ingenuity and some sheet metal stock you should be able
to make any enlarger lens fit the hole on a Speed Graphic lens board drilled for
a #3 copal shutter. Simply drill a hole for the new lens in two sheets of the
metal cut to fit inside the lens board and sandwich these two pieces on either
side of the lens board, then attach the lens.
I am sure there are many refinements one can make to this design. For instance
one could contrive a rack and pinion drive to raise and lower the enlarger on the
vertical riser. One could forego the wooden structure and build the base out of
malleable steel, or iron. You could dismantle the Speed Graphic take the bellows
and standard and permanently attach them to the base. If you are extremely
fortunate you may have an old bellows and standard that you aren't sure what you
will do with and this could be the solution for them. In fact there is no reason
you couldn't use a bag bellows on the design.
I have installed and used this enlarger and I am convinced it is as good as
any black and white condenser enlarger I have ever used. It's sharpness, clarity,
ease of use and ability to accept virtually any film size, up to and including
4x5, coupled with the overall cost make this enlarger a real alternative to
consider for your own darkroom.Remember too that this enlarger design does not
have to incorporate the Omega head; any good 4x5 head that you can find should be
adaptable to the same use.
If you have a Speed Graphic and have always been intrigued by the thought of
the camera being used "in reverse" as an enlarger, or are simply in need of an
inexpensive high quality large format enlarger, then consider this alternative. I
have less than $150.00 in my little gem and it works perfectly. Add a high
quality repeatable timer, and a good easel and you are all set.
Text and photos copyright 2001
Jerry Sparrow .
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, June 11, 2002; 05:02 P.M. 
