negative carrier for Focomat IIA

[Jack Campin <jack@purr.demon.co.uk>]

Are we allowed to talk about Leitz enlargers here?...

I've got a Focomat IIA; a huge ugly monster that goes up to 6x9, which is (not
all that accurately) autofocus with a 50mm lens and has another autofocus cam
for a 95mm lens (which I don't have, and making a cam for the 100mm lens I do
have would be a real ordeal).  I want to use it all the way up to 6x9; I have
a rollfilm view camera.

Problem is, I've got scratches on the negative carrier.  The upper glass is
a very complex part, as glass sheets go, with a ground flange:

               ________________________________
     __________|_                             _|__________
                 |___________________________|

and the lower one isn't much better, with a chamfer held in place by angled
rails:

                 _____________________________
     __________//_____________________________\\___________
               --                             --

Both are scratched.  The top one is anti-Newton glass.  I've tried to get a
glazier to make me a replacement for the bottom one, but making it fit the
rails requires submillimetric precision and they couldn't do it.  They just
looked at me funny when I asked if they could cut me a replacement for the
top one.  I've still got the originals; it might be possible to polish out
the scratches in the top one, but the bottom one's had it.  About all I can
think of doing to save the carrier is tape a guide made from scrap film
across the gate and use it glassless (not really a good idea for 6x9, and it
would throw the focus way off).

Any better ideas?  Can I get replacement glasses or a replacement carrier
from anywhere?

There are other bits missing, too: no magnification scale (I don't need this)
and some funny linkages under the baseboard which appear to be intended to
link to the easel - auto-blade-movement or something?  there's no mention in
the instruction book of what this is for.  But basically it works, once I got
past the design misfeature of the whole shebang being way too heavy for the
point where the column goes through the baseboard (this had worn a bit and
needed to be shimmed) and the fact that it leaks light out of the lamphouse
like a disco rig (fixed with tape and a chimney of black plastic drainpipe).

Oh yes, the thread on the helical focus is soft brass and has worn a fair bit.
All in all this doesn't seem to have been one of Leitz's more inspired designs,
but 6x9 enlargers aren't easy to find.  It doesn't have a filter drawer, but
I can live with graded paper (someday I will figure out a way to filter it,
like, attack that lamphouse with a hacksaw).

Anyone else out there use one of these brutes?









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jack@purr.demon.co.uk  -  Jack Campin, 2 Haddington Place, Edinburgh EH7 4AE