I took your advice and started looking around for used equipment. I placed an ad on my ISP and got a response.

The person has a Durst C35 enlarger with other misc. darkroom stuff, left by a brother. Can any one tell me if this is a decent model? The price is right for the boxful of stuff, tanks trays clips print dryer etc. plus the enlarger.

Is this an obsolete model? Will I have problems finding parts?

Thanks for your replys, it has helped!!

Jeff

-- Jeff (pctech@tir.com), February 04, 2000

Answers

I have a Cls35. It has a colour head which I presume is the only difference, but I'm no expert.

From some old magazines I have, it appears to date from at least the mid 1970's. Mine is a 35mm enlarger but a 6x6 conversion kit was available. I'd say it is obsolete, but by no means useless.

Generally I'm happy with mine, it appears to be well constructed of qaulity materials, but these are my gripes: If you do not intend to mount the enlarger head seperately, the standard column is a bit short for my liking. Also, the negative, at least in my enlarger, does not sit firmly within the neg carrier; I don't know whether this is a design fault or whether I have a part missing - I bought mine second hand. Others may well comment further on this.

I suppose you have to also consider the price offered and your needs. Eg, if you do not expect to make prints larger than 8x10's, then the column height is not an issue.

-- Frank Alvaro (falvaro@ozemail.com.au), February 04, 2000.

I have used a C35 for 17 odd years. You can go a little bit larger than 10x8 on the base board with a 50mm lens. You can mount the column back to front and project onto the floor for really large enlargements! Speaking of the lens... they came with a thing called a Durst Neotar f2.8. A cheapy lens but as mentioned in these forums elsewhere I've compared it to a Schneider Componar C f3.5 and EL- Nikkor f4 and upto 10x8 enlargements it's not disgraced. Since I bought mine new, I know the neg carrier that I have is the original and does hold the neg firmly. The 6x6 kit that you could buy back then was called a Mixineg66 (or something like that!) and comprised a neg carrier and light mixing box. I have no idea if you could get parts but if it's all there then I doubt if you will need any. It does use a special reflector globe that I couldn't get anymore so converted mine to use a 12V Dicloric lamp (a household 'down' light) This seemed to work fine. I have recently replaced mine with an equally old Durst M601 so that I can print 6x4.5 negs, otherwise I would still be using it. If you have any specific question, feel free to e-mail :)

-- Nigel Smith (nlandgl@eisa.net.au), February 06, 2000.

I bought a 35Cls, secondhand, in about 1978. It has performed good service since then, for many years as my only enlarger. I bolted the column to a wooden framework, and bolted that to a wall, giving rigidity, and extra height and distancing from the wall for large prints.

-- Alan Gibson (Alan.Gibson@technologist.com), February 06, 2000.