Darkroom Punch Up.

[MarcAeonDELETED]

A few have gone aaaawwwwwhhh a month ago when I had to explain the state of my fingers. How many times have you told people to be carefull when dis-mounting an enlarger from its base. 10? 20 times, I know I have. How many times have you ignored your own advice? Once twice? I did, just once. I can report with some initial discomfort that the head cradle on a Durst L1200, without the light box on top, moves from the bottom of its long column to the top so fast, you not only dont see it, you cant get your fingers out fast enough. SO fast in fact, that it will break both your fingers. First 20 minutes is pretty full on I can tell you. I forgot to lock the head. Had taken the whole thing off and the column had been quite happy on its side, on my desk, for a couple of days. Nipping into the darkroom late one night I could hear a tink tink tink noise coming from the desk area. What was that I thought. Crouching down I placed my hand on the end of the column. Thats the right, fingers curled over the lip. The second I did it my brain said NO. The message got to my fingers slightly after the mounting craddle did. Now thats bad enough but the laws of physics also kicked in. If force is moving one way etc etc. As the head of busy smashing my fingers flat and holding them now fimly in the place the column itself continued to travel at some speed now its cradle was using me as a back stop. Its one hell of a roman type, castle door smashing weapon, not so great on my chest. So folks the stories are true. Lock the bloody headdown. Its also the last time I ever stuck my chin over the top of an enlarger.

[big paul]

that's what I like about working in the darkroom its the danger excitement
who needs bungee jumping,extreme ironing,Russian roulette ,just one afternoon in the darkroom is enough excitement and danger for me ....

I hope you are feeling a little better I know what its like to brake fingers.. so get better soon .

[paulc]

I have a six(ish) foot long luggage strap in the darkroom specifically for the purpose of strapping the head down. Not had any accidents when removing the head to date. The day will come no doubt, and I will suffer the consequences...

[Mike O'Pray]

My sympathies to you. I hope those 1200s give great prints in return for what seems an object that is only marginally less dangerous in a darkroom than a hungry leopard :D

Seriously though, the ease with which a moment of inattention can turn to disaster with these brutes does worry me.

I'll stick with my 605

Mike

[Steve Smith]

At work many years ago in a storage space, there was the stand for a large drawing board without the board on it. It had a foot pedal which you pressed to allow you to manually raise or lower the board.

I walked up to it and put my foot on the pedal. The central column shot out missing my face by about 1/8" and punched a hole in the ceiling. It turned out that after some dis-assembly and rebuilding, the restraining wires which are supposed to stop it launching itself had not been reconnected.

If I had been a few inches closer, I wouldn't have much of a head left!


Steve.

[Mike O'Pray]

If I had been a few inches closer, I wouldn't have much of a head left!


Steve.

Can't get much closer to a "permanent" accident than that and to think that some folk on another forum think that flushing highly diluted dev and fix down the drain with plenty of accompanying water is the height of danger:D

Mike

[MarcAeonDELETED]

Just been using the old girl. The reason I had the head off is that Ive taken the enlarger off the baseboard and bolted it to a standard office desk. Added box section steel to the rear and added to that dumb bells to counter balance the Enlarger, then, and this is the good bit. Sawn off the desk level with the enlarger column. The concept if you have not already guessed is that I can whip the desk top away if I want to do A0 prints on the floor. Put desktop back for normal size prints. I had a Devere free standing 504 before hand but with a potential move back to London she had to do. Well worth a couple of broken fingers. Finished making the desk with them anyway so its not that bad. Like said, its the first 20 minutes. One nail has fallen off to reveal a perfect imprint of the impact. I might treat it to a large format photo lol.

[cesare]

I've recently done the same sort of thing, well, the removal of the base and bolting the enlarger to the table. My darkroom table is basically a kitchen worktop, so about as thick as the baseboard, and laminated chipboard of some description. As my enlarger is a Durst Pictochrom, the column has a secondary unit next to it with all the electronic gubbins, and the transformer built in. This means it weighs twice as much and is rather difficult to put together.

I ended up with the wife standing on the desk holding the enlarger whilst I was down the gap at the back of the desk trying to get the bolts to align.

As I tend to shoot MF, to print big, I shift use a 5*4 mixing box and lens, and shift the negative slightly back in the holder so the column doesn't get in the way. I was a bit limited by the baseboard size, but now I can print straight onto the table when i'm in the mood.

I do hope the fingers mend well - sounds very painful.

[Adrian]

Ouch!

If there are any colleges still using real enlargers I hope their management don't hear about this kind of thing - risk assessments, Health 'n' Safety and another excuse to dump film!