This will help you a lot with the basics for this enlarger as to its engineering:
Fixing the basic flaws for the enlarger is easy andis nessary.

On BOTH of these enlargers (Blue or Black) the first step is to turn it around and look at the back of the enlarger. Find the silver bar that runs from side to side, and at the terminus has a metal cowling that covers the white nylon gears that allow the enlarger to rise and fall by turning the elevation handle. There are two tapered screws top and bottom that hold the cowling/cover in place. Loosen the elevation lock (located on the front of the enlarger. Now, you will take both screws loose with a screw driver and remove the cowling cover. Do both sides of cowlings. You will drill out the threading both on the cowlings and where these fit to the threaded part on the enlarger chasse (these are all aluminum parts and should drill easily and use medium speed on your drill, also, if you wish to ‘lube’ the drill bit, do NOT use oil, the lubricate for aluminum is alcohol, any sort but rubbing alcohol is much cheaper than Gray Goose. LOL!!!).

Now off to Home Depot or Lows with one of the cowlings to get four machine thread bolts, lock washers and nuts; you can go super cool and get the machine bolts and self locking nuts, but that is up to you. Make sure they go into and through the holes. If necessary, you can get a slightly larger size and re-drill the holes a bit larger, but don’t over do it. You can get the bolts with flat or Philips head openings, it realy does not matter much.

Before you depart, we need to stop by the electrical department, don’t freak! This will be ‘easy peasy’, you are looking for a vary cheap and simple something, it is adaptor that allows you to take and plug in a grounded (three prong) plug into a two or three prong outlet. BUT! You need to get the correct version of this. Look for the adaptor plug that has a wire attached to it, if it don’t have one ask for assistance and get one like this. You will need a length of infe wire 12 or 14, even 16 gauge wire that has insulation on the wire. To be code and to be not confusing, this is a ground wire so get it in green (but that is not critical). You will attaché the wire to that short wire sticking out from the adaptor and the other end goes to a steel bolt that is anywhere attached to the enlarger. This is how you will easily GROUND THE ENLARGER. This will help with about 80% of all your dust problems when working with negatives during printing. To attach you take the wire from the enlarger, connected to the adaptor, back out the center screw on the plastic cover plate on the outlet and without removing that plastic cover, slip the horse shoe shaped clip at the end of the ground wire and put it under that screw, now tighten the screw back down and now your enlarger is grounded. The adaptor is there so you have not lost that outlet for use so plug in anything you like.

Now back home and now you get to put the four bolts through the holes in the classy of the enlarger and then drop the cowling on to the bolts and then tighten the nuts and bolts nice and tight into place.

Now your enlarger is much better. How? Well the cowlings are designed to get loose and then even fall off. Why? So that after a while you will need to replace the nylon gears on the back. So replacements are sold as a set through camera stores/syppliers.

Ahhh, here is the rub, you will need to remove the entire gear rod from the enlarger as that steel rod is held in place by knock out pins. So you will need a punch set, a hammer, and a vise to hold the rod as you knock the pin sets out and the keep them, put the new pin sets into the new gears (Bessler is nice and they do put replacements in with the package for you), back to the bench vise, and tap in these pin sets into the holes of the nylon gear, while lining up the holes in the steel bar. My-my, what a fun project and you guys will be delighted that you get to use your tools and even the fact that you probably screwed up the enlarger’s alignment so there is even more busy work! Ain’t it fun to do all this?

What a pain in the ass! But now when you wrench down the hold down clamp and go to turn the handle and the enlarger refuses to move, well you will say, “Upppsies, got to release the wolverine”, and you unlock the clamp; now you can raise and lower the enlarger with ease and then clamp it back into place.

How do I know at a glance that a pro has set up that darkroom? Remember, I chaired the department of photography, had basic to advanced students and 17 of these Bessler 23cII enlargers and no one to help maintain the little devils! So I got to do all this till I decided ENOUGH! NONE of the department 23cII had a locking hold down on them, NONE! Nothing to break or screw up! On the back, and this is NOT easily done, is a cover that covers the balance spring that controls the rising and fall of the enlarger. If you loosen this cowling and reset the spring tension the enlarger can be lowered and raised slowly or rapidly by pulling the enlarger up and down the column. I left the handle on the enlarger so people would not jack with them but there were no hold downs or other carp on the enlargers; they just stayed where they were last put and did not drift. You can adjust your enlarger as you wish of course but this is so much easier that all the BS.

Bessler 23cII Black Chasse only:

Now for the realy BAD news; there are two versions of 23cII’s. They are easy to identify, the older ones are BLUE chasse painted, the newer ones are painted BLACK. If you got the BLUE chasse, “You are in like Flynn”; but if the chasse is painted BLACK, you will need to walk a mile to get the enlarger to work. Out of the box it will NOT work properly. But do not despair, it is an easy fix, realy.

Back to the box store that boyz love so much and a few women…go to hardware/fasteners. You will need to get the bolts for the cowling covers to do the gear covers, do not forget that. You will need replacement bolts (1/4-20) in longer sizes for the four bolts that mount the chasse to the base board, along with washers as spacers for the front two bolts. Also, for the single elevator bolt that goes into that (1/4-20) threaded hole in the front that allows you to raise the enlarger pivot to the elevator assembly. If you are in one of the better stores, go look in the nylon bolt bin and get a nylon bolt and put steel or brass nuts on it so it will stay in place when you align the enlarger for the lens to the base board.

Here is the explanation: the enlarger comes to you with an impossible angle for the base board to the enlarger column. You MUST raise the front of the column up higher than the back of the column. So you will replace the front two bolts with washers, (start with five standard ¼-20 washers) and I also added one to each of the rear bolts. In this way you will discover as you are doing the basic alignment of your enlarger you can fine tune the adjustment of alignment in all four directions by adding and removing washers, even change the thickness of washers. That is, if you want to fine tune your alignment on the enlarger.

BUT! You MUST raise the front of the enlarger enough so that you can lower the lens to be in basic parallel to the base board and that is what the long nylon screw will do. This applies to ONLY the BLACK CHASSE Bessler enlarger, the older blue chasse enlargers do not need this to get basic alignment on the enlarger.

Hope that helps darkroom campers!

Thanks!

Great idea but sadly my 23 C still is sitting gathering dust.  I doubt it will ever be used again.