Darkroom is finished!

[Anthony Martinez]

I'm fairly certain I will walk away from my differential equations class with a high B at the lowest. That said, it is time to switch off the higher math portion of my brain and switch on the building stuff section.

With any luck, by the start of the weekend I will have a functional darkroom in my house. For the sake of documentation, I believe I'll break out the digital and take some photos along the way. To start things off, my intro thread at APUG generated a PM from another member which yielded a great box of goodies for a whopping $0. Bad cellpic below:



As you can see, quite a bit of paper. Mostly Ilford MGIV RC. Some Forte. Sizes from postcard to 11x14. I'll have to set an easel up for that. Good thing I have a few! There's also 20 rolls of Agfa APX 400 (135), and 20 rolls of Tri-X (120).

Stopped by Co-Op to pick up developer, stop, and fixer. I also intended to pick up another cable release since I seem to have lost mine, but I forgot. Another day.

Enough babbling. Time to start building!

[marcosb]

Dude thats nice ,have fan .I love doing darkroom work too

[heespharm]

Yeah I can't leave coop without spending less than a Hundy... Last time I spent $443 and I went there to buy a 10 dollar item!!

[Anthony Martinez]

The enlarger table is built and in place. Most of the CB7 is upstairs. The tray table is mostly built, and I still haven't started the drying racks yet. It's too late to be sawing on things out in the garage right now and the batteries for my drill are dead anyway. I should finish tomorrow. Happy happy joy joy.

[henrysamson]

Hey Anthony,

One word of advice regarding paper of unknown pedigree. Take a sheet from each batch and label the back with the box it came from. Don't develop it! Just fix and wash as you would a regular print. Compare the white of the undeveloped paper with the borders of your enlargements. If the borders are grey in comparison the paper has some fog. If old film has a bit of fog, you can just print through it. With paper you have to live with it.

Just knowing this will keep you from beating yourself up over prints that just don't seem to have clean whites. If it is too fogged for good prints, it can still be used for contact sheets and proofing.

Have fun!

Henry

[Anthony Martinez]

Good to know. I'll do that. The guy who gave it to me said it should be fine, but I will test it anyway. I'm not sure I'd know the difference between fogged paper and good paper if it bit me on the nose given my single day's worth of darkroom experience, but I'll certainly see if I can tell a difference or not and plan accordingly.

Both tables are built, planed enough, sanded, and painted. I was going to build a frame for a print dryer but discovered a bird cage stand in the garage. It fits perfectly in the space I have available, so I'm going to be using its frame instead. Good thing. Saved me having to rip 2x8's into 1" sections. That would have been a PITA without a table saw.

Paint is drying right now. It's onto the interior of the room. I need to head out and pickup some odds and ends, but I aim to be finished by tonight. I have no timer right now but that's unlikely to stop me from trying a test anyway. Parts have been ordered to build a digital timer. Should have that finished this weekend. It'll be in seconds to start, but once I digest the programming language for the microprocessor I will likely add an f-stop function.

There will be photos when it's done. Naturally.

[venchka]

Two trays for fix in an archival setup. Use the first tray fixer to exhaustion. Then move second tray to first tray position & fill second tray with new fixer. Repeat. I don't see a hypo clearing tray either. Sterilite brand plastic containers from Walmart are handy & cheap. How will you dry prints? Air is good. Heat needs careful attention. You could build a facsimile of the Zone VI print dryer. It is a rack that holds suitable sized window screens. I have the 16x20 version. Holds a dozen 8x10s at once.

[Anthony Martinez]

Not worried about archival quality yet. Need to figure out how to actually get good prints on the paper before I worry about if the print will outlive me or not. It's all RC paper, and everything I've read thus far says hypo clear serves only to reduce wash time. I'm fine with a longer wash. I can probably fit a fourth tray on there for a hypo clear if there are problems. Prints will dry on window screen racks.

Space is limited. Will do what I can with what I have and worry about making something more elaborate when I've got my own place.

[henrysamson]

After the first fix, I park my prints in a tray of water. After the end of the printing session I dump everything and clean up some. Then I do the second fix and hypo clear in batches of 6-8 with constant shuffling. This fixer can be saved for the first bath of the next session. This way you don't need as much sink space and don't have to deal with the second fix and hypoclear until the end when they can be done in batches. Much quicker and less chance of contaminating the hypocleared prints with fixer. Then everything goes into an archival washer for a couple of hours.

As an aside . . . I actually use straight sodium thiosulfate for the second fixer since I add selenium toner to the hypoclear. This is the suggested procedure for fiber prints.

[heespharm]

Just use an alkaline fixer like tf2, tf3, tf4 from photographers formulary... Or homebrew ur own.... No need for hypo or long wash times with alkaline fixer


As far as drying frames all you need are
Some cheap picture frames or just any sort of rectangle and staple some window screen material to it... They are stackable .... For me I just hang them on a clothes line after I squeegee them

Oh and make sure your table for you enlarger is solid and level from front to back and side to side... It'll save you alot pain from banging your head on the wall

[venchka]

Good tips everyone. Thanks!

Sodium sulfite at 2 tsp. per liter makes a good fixer eliminator. When you start making prints you want to keep. Again, the plastic storage bin aisle at Walmart is your friend. stacking trays one above the other can work also. A plastic cutting board and auto windshield squeegee thingie gets the excess water off the prints.

[Anthony Martinez]

Very near completion. I intended to finish today, but that just didn't happen. The enlarger, drying racks, and tray table are in place. One door is blacked out. The other needs another layer before it's done. I also need to finish my ventilation and put a fan under the enlarger table to get some air circulating around in there.

I will finish tomorrow, and with that will come an onslaught of photos.

[venchka]

When you think it's done, place a sheet of enlarging paper on the enlarger baseboard. Let it sit for 5 minutes or so. Develop. Stop. Fix. Wash. Dry. Compare to the control sheet that was developed without exposure to any light.

[heespharm]

Just be careful with too much air circulation...don't want dust flying everywhere

[Anthony Martinez]

Yeah, I'm just getting a little fan to blow air on me. There will be dust flying around everywhere no matter what I do. This house is uberdusty. :/