Re: [Leica] Focomat question -- oddball 1c

[TTAbrahams@aol.com]

Bob, there must be two of those beasts out there. I have one sitting on my 
work-desk. It is a 1a with a 1c head and condensor. The up-down device is a 
simple screw clamp on a flat bar. This was normal for a 1a and even though it 
looks like it was made in a home based workshop, it is the actual 1a 
configuration. On mine the head and condensor as well as the light housing 
has been replaced by a late, gray hammer tone painted! c set-up. It even has 
the elusive filterdrawer on it. The upright is the rather wobbly, small 
diameter post and the baseboard is a standard wood one. 
 There are frequent modifications to 1a and 1c's. Users put cold-light heads 
on them, sometimes colour heads (Wallner, Omega etc) and quite often they 
were modified for left hand use or right hand use. The genius of the Focomat 
1a/c is that it is a very simple design, it works very well and can 
accommodate these modifications. My hybrid came into my possession because it 
had an Ilford 500S Multigrade head on it. It did lack the control panel 
(still looking for that one), but it had the Focotar 50/4,5 and the 
neg-carrier as well as a clean condensor. One of these days I will find a 
control panel and finish it off and put it to good use.
 The Ia needs bracing on the upright as the post has a tendency to wobble a 
bit, the Ic, particularly the later version is rock steady in that regard. I 
use a 2C for most of my printing, but in most cases that is overkill as the 
1C is one of the most elegant and simple enlargers ever made.
All the best,
Tom A