Building a darkroom

To be inkeeping of the tech, an old 50's bush radio.

Or MP3 track list:

Kodachrome - Paul Simon
Girlsonfilm - Duran Duran

If you visit Fife, any time!

What would you say is the best combination?

It depend of what you want. All is about what you want in the end, the rendering of your image, from your film choice to the enlarger.
Smoother grain with less dust with Ilford head / more grain and sharpness with the original condenser head. Easier with the variable contrast on the ilford head over the classic filter. That's for the head. For the body, the best is De Vere 504 IMO, but Durst 1200, Omega D5 are high end machines for printing till 4x5'.

It's huge!

Not perfect condition but all seems to work.

Counter balance spring is cracked but only a little..... not going to worry about it.

Negative carrier could do with being replaced but I'm struggl ing to find much information on this model.

Came with all three mixing boxes and 4 enlarging lenses, 50mm Nikon, 2x 105mm and 150mm Rodenstock. Bit of fungus on the 150mm lens. Not sure if it can be cleaned......

All in all very happy for £500.

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Nice. Don't worry about the spring as you said, but if it breaks, try to not have your head above ! What is the problem with the negative carrier ? It is a hard-to-find piece... or really expensive.
For the lens, I would say try it and see how it comes. I worked with a very good b&w printer and he was using a 63mm nikkor full of fungus. He said that it was the best lens he ever had even with the fungus so he didn't want to clean it...

bit of a compromise but should have good resale value if I want to shift it.

Dunno what its like in London but up here in Glasgow darkroom kit doesn't have resale value.

I kitted mine out (with an LPL colour enlarger that I only use for b&w) for free and could have kitted out another 3 or 4 since as everytime I mention I have a darkroom in the flat someone always chips in with something like "Oh I have an enlarger that I tried to ebay years ago but the postage was extortionate so noone bought it, you want it? Free if you can come and take it away...please take it away..."

Here in Paris/France, if you have a good one, you can sell it for some money. I've seen Durst 1200 with Ilford box sold for 1000€ complete. But color enlargers still don't have good press...

Haha, I wouldn't know. I came here for advice on building a sweet fixeh 10 years ago and stayed for the banter.

I live in Fife!

Progress!

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ah, I missed this thread first time round.
I've built and designed a couple of darkrooms. if you have any questions I am happy to help.
regarding the colour, white is fine, although I think the nicest one I saw was pale blue.

I have to finish the plumbing and I can start printing.

I also need a decent table to use under the enlarger...... hard to find something suitable.

I'll do a short video once I have it a bit more together.

table - build it yourself. thick plywood should be best. remember to space it so you have room for a big easel. if you have a budget for easel buy a Beard

I already have a couple of Durst easels, I just can't wait to get printing.

great, have fun.
if you are printing color my recommended paper is Fuji CA DPII. It only comes in rolls. The cut sheet paper available from Fuji is on a much thinner base, and consequently worse quality.
maybe you know all this already.

I'll be concentrating on black and white I think.

I've read that and I thought of you https://rfotofolio.org/2018/08/30/where-we-work-brian-kosoff/

damn, what a space! wet darkroom looks too large even.
shame his work is pretty crap. ah well.

also, why is he so into that scanner?
I'd take a drum scanner every day over it

Never had anything drum scanned. Is it superior to copying negs with a high end Nikon / canon / phase one?

Holy shit, what a space

absolutely, way way beyond.
you need a good operator.
in London I have one of the best people if you're happy paying £30-50/frame or thereabouts

Could I get a sample 300dpi TIFF?

Some plumbing, I've taken a hot and cold feed to taps on my house, two short hoses to the shed (dark room) and a couple of service valves to mix the hot and cold at the sink.

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I've PMed you.