Used dark-room gear: cleaning dos & don'ts, please ?

[Luddite Frank]

Last summer, a friend scored a bunch of dark-room gear for me at a local fleamarket.

Got a Besseler 23 Enlarger, bunch of trays, tanks, reels, etc.


I want to start cleaning this stuff up so that I can begin putting it to use.


Are there some general "do's and don'ts" for cleaning / inspecting used darkroom gear before using it ( or determining it's ready to be tossed?)

Items in question:

Paterson 8x10 trays (generally dusty / dirty, maybe stained )

Unicolor plastic tanks & reels ("ratcheting" black& white plastic)

Nikkor tank & reels ( reels look good, tank looks grubby - should I avoid steel-wool pads, scouring powders, etc ??? )

I don't want to inadvertantly use some household cleanser / method that would damage or leave a lasting residue that would impact processing...

Any suggestions ?

Thanks,

Luddite Frank

 

[JohnTF]

The trick I used to hear was toilet cleaner.

I recall Kodak had a formula for a tray cleaner.

Bleach dissolves the gelatin in films and papers, if any sticky stuff is on it, you might try that as well, don't mix any cleaners of course.

Regards, John

 

[wpb]

Toilet bowl cleaner was often used to remove RA-4 developer gunk, but diluted it will work for everything. Don't ever scratch plastic it will just hold in the crud and be worse in the long run then if you would have just rinsed with warm water. Anything harder than a toothbrush will create fine scratches. In reality most of the labs I worked in had filthy trays and tanks (mainly due to the hard water) but they always seemed to work just fine.

As for the B23, take it outside and extend the focusing bellows and give it a blast of compressed air. look and see if there is dust or smudges on the condenser lenses but if you take them out to clean them make sure you make a note of how to put them back properly. Lastly, just replace the bulb. There is no sense starting off with a bulb you know nothing about and it can save many wasted sheets of paper in the long run.

 

[JohnTF]

Last summer, a friend scored a bunch of dark-room gear for me at a local fleamarket.

Got a Besseler 23 Enlarger, bunch of trays, tanks, reels, etc.


Cleaning up the enlarger is straight forward, good suggestion to take it outside to clean, shoot some photos if you think you will have any problem putting it back together, but I think it pretty easy.

Having or finding a good lens will really make a difference, they should be just about everywhere. Any of the APO lenses should be very nice, later Nikon EL's are very good, and I have a number of others as well

If you have to buy lens boards or negative holders new, you will quickly find they cost more than all of what you paid, so horde any you find. ;-) My neighbor was a machinist and made a number of lens boards for me, and we cut some of the odder negative carriers out for formats I needed.

I prefer the 45m's, they seem so much more sturdy, and of course take the larger formats. I also put a Picker cold light source on it, and later the Minolta color head.

I have a 23c and dichoro head somewhere, but not likely to find all the parts any time soon. ;-)

Have fun.


Regards, John