Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/06/28
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]> Tell the seller to get a box big enough to hold the enlarger, pour > in about three inches of foam pellets, but the enlarger in, then fill the > box up with pellets. Tape securely, then take it to a common > carrier(Yellow > Frieght for example) and ship the puppy. Send you the bill. :( > Don't do this! A IIc weighs about 85 pounds. It takes two people to lift it. You really need to remove the fragile parts (lamp house, condensers, negative carriers) and pack them separately. And having done that, you may as well disassemble the rest and pack it into smaller boxes. I would proceed as follows. 1. Raise the head as high as it will go and clamp it. This is for safety - the springs are quite powerful and when they are no longer counterbalanced by the weight of the condensers the head might fly up and inflict serious injury. 2. Remove negative carrier. Wrap carefully in plenty of bubble-wrap. 3. Wrap the other negative carrier (if present) carefully. 4. Loosen the screws holding the film trays( the "wings" either side of the negative stage), remove film trays and wrap. 5. Remove bowden cable for cam changing. 6. Remove top of lamp house (with bulb), put it in a box with plenty of plastic peanuts. 7. Lift out condensers, wrap carefully in plenty of bubble-wrap, place in another box with plenty of plastic peanuts. 8. Loosen the knob at back right of lamp house, lift off lamp house, put it in a box with plenty of plastic peanuts. 9. Unlock (lift) the clamping lever at the base of the parallelogram. Remove the three screws from the top of the screw collar on the column (this is the secret move necessary to disassemble a IIc). Raise the parallelogram to the top of the column using the screw collar and lift the parallelogram off the top of the column. Wrap the parallelogram (with negative stage and lenses) in a vast amount of bubble-wrap, place in another box with plenty of plastic peanuts. 10. Turn baseboard+column on one side, from underside of baseboard remove the four bolts in the base of the column. Remove column, use your ingenuity with the wiring, wrap column in plenty of bubble-wrap, place in another box with plenty of plastic peanuts. 11. Wrap baseboard in plenty of bubble-wrap, place in another box with plenty of plastic peanuts. 12. Put negative carriers, film trays, cables, screws, etc in another box with plenty of plastic peanuts. 13. You now have 7 boxes (top of lamp house, bottom of lamp house, condensers, parallelogram, column, baseboard, odds and ends). You may want to put the smaller 4 (top of lamp house, bottom of lamp house, condensers, odds and ends) inside a larger box with plenty of plastic peanuts. 14. Ship the boxes. It will not be cheap. If in doubt, use bigger stronger boxes and more plastic peanuts. Most parts are irreplaceable, negative carriers and condensers fetch almost as much as complete enlargers when they rarely appear on eBay. I had a IIc damaged in shipment from Munich to the UK a couple of years ago, I was lucky to get the last replacement lamphouse from Leica UK. Tim Rylance, Bath UK