This is terrific, folks. Thanks so much. Feel free to continue adding to this. I am paying very close attention.
This is terrific, folks. Thanks so much. Feel free to continue adding to this. I am paying very close attention.
It is convenient, not necessary. I have never had a sink or even running water in my darkroom. The quality of my work was never effected by this.Originally Posted by david b_6567
In a high volume production environment this would have been a problem, but since I typically worked on a print over a period days, the only nuissance was that it took longer to clean up.
In place of a sink I had an 8 foot long countertop. And some buckets.
Do you like it? I always thought it I got a sink I'd try one of these. Stainless is cool, but there are a few issues with it (besides price). Most stainless sinks aren't made out of the highest quality alloys, and can be corroded by a number of common chemicals if you're at all lazy about washing them out.
Also, stainless sheet metal is fairly conductive, which multiplies any problems of holding your chemistry at any temperature if it's warmer or colder in the room. I know some metal sinks have some kind of insulation on the underside to help with this (and to make them quieter). but that ABS plastic always seemed like a great solution ... even though the black color probably isn't ideal.
Making a sink seems popular, but you definitely have to be down for the project, and for dealing with the fumes. I don't know if I'd be interested in taking that on.
Rambling continues:
for me the most important quality for a darkroom is that it's a nice space to spend time in. this is completely subjective. but i need to enjoy the time i'm in there. i'll make some decisions that lead to the space being less efficient if they make it more inhabitable. i've always prefered spare bedroom-type darkrooms over the basement dungeon type. which i know is a luxury.
I got my first darkroom upon getting rid of a certain woman, and when she and her attendant piles of art supplies were gone, I ended up with a big darkroom with hardwood floors, high ceilings, and lots of room to wander, to breathe, to jump around to the music, etc.. it wasn't very light tight so i only used it at night. but that was nice because i could leave the door open, and my cat could come and go, and the room felt like part of my living space and not some cave.
this might not be at the top of everyone's priority list, but it's worth considering before you make the big irreversible decisions.
Last edited by paulr; 7-Sep-2006 at 12:09.
The two sinks that I mentioned in my comment earlier in the thread are both black plastic. I got them from Calumet. They've been in service for 10 years now, and I'm still very happy with that choice - saved lots of money up front, and there's been no functional downside for me at all.
The only potential issue I can think of as I look back on my experience is whether the plastic has a load limit that might ever be constraining. I've had no problem running a loaded Jobo CPA-2 in one of my sinks, but if you wanted to put a large print washer in the sink - say 16x20 - you could be concentrating >200 pounds on a smallish footprint. There's some flex in the plastic of my sinks, and I don't know whether they'd hold up under that sort of load.
A sink somewhere is a necessity. A sink in the darkroom is a welcome luxury. For years I had a darkroom without sink. It was much nicer than the darkroom that I don't have now.
I would mix up the chemicals, put the trays on the countertop and develop prints. I had a holding tray that I filled with water and used to move the prints to the area with the sink. That is where the print washer lived. It worked fine.
Working in a darkroom is more convenient if there is a sink, but you can live without it if a sink is not possible, or you can't afford to have one in your darkroom.
Dry side: 44"
Bottom of sink: 38"
I actually increased the height of the sink bottom to about 40" by getting 24x48 ceiling grids and putting them on wooden slats. Keeps the stainless from coolong off the trays in these chilly New Hampshire winters, and aids draining.
Bruce Barlow
author of "Finely Focused" and "Exercises in Photographic Composition"
www.brucewbarlow.com
I have a sink - it's framed up in 1x2 pine with a 1/2" plywood bottom. The bottom is sloped, and at the low end I installed a small stainless steel sink (purchased from a travel-trailer accessories shop) under a bar faucet to provide a drain and a place to fill containers with water. The whole thing was painted with two-component epoxy paint and is about 25 years old at this point.
But I think the key question really is NOT do you need a "sink" - a darkroom sink is nothing more than a place to lay out an array of trays, and unless you opt for some kind of automated processing, you will have to deal with trays. And in that case, you will have to deal with how to deal with spashed liquids around the trays. The choice of wood, plastic, stainless, concrete, soapstone, or rtificial stone all pertain to how you manaage splashes.
To me, the real question is do you need a drain, and the followup question is how to arrange for a drain. The fact is that unless you are very fortunate, setting up the drain will be the real challenge. It's the exception rather than the rule that the building design will put a drain exactly where you need it for a darkroom.
If your darkroom is in a basement, the chances are that the darkroom drain will be below the level of the waste lines in the house. I can only think of two ways to put in a darkroom drain in that case. One is that if you have a sump and sump-pump, you may be able to have the darkroom drain flow into the sump, and then let the sump pump do whatever it is set up to do with the gray water. Yes, that probably does not meet building codes, but it's an option.
The other solution is to install a reservoir to store gray water from the darkroom, and a pump to then move that gray water up to a level where it can flow into the house drain. Home Despot and Lowes sell "laundry tray pumps" that are ideal for this application, or you can cobble something using some kind of storage tank (a Rubbermaid bin works well) and a sump pump.
Some other things to think about:
- ventillation: this is important, both for health and for comfort. If you are more comfortable, you will be more creative. Positive pressure ventillation is best (that's where the fan blows air into the darkroom, and it flows out because of the positive pressure), and the ventillation system should include filtration to manage dust incursion. Something that is often overlooked is the noise level of the ventillation system - if it is too noisy, it won't be used. The ventillator in my darkroom is a computer-style muffin fan mounted outside the darkroom; air flows in through a plastic duct. The master switch (see below) turns on the fan so that it is on whenever I am in the darkroom. Always provide a way for the air to flow out near the sink so that fumes from the chemicals don't have to work their away across the darkroom to find a natural exit.
- master switch: very convenient to have. In my case, it's by the door and controls a circuit that includes the white light, the safelights and the ventillator. I have separate switches for the white light and safelight mounted under the enlarger station so that I can control those features as needed by the process that I am working. I also installed a small red indicator light outside the darkroom so that my wife will know that I am working in there and knock before opening the door.
- Door: the perfect-world answer is to have a maze, but that takes a lot of floor space. A door works just as well in a one-person darkroom. Whether it opens in or out depends on what is convenient to you and your layout. I put a lock on the door to keep people on the outside from opening the door when I have a box of sheet film open - used a "bathroom" lock that can be opened from the outside in an emergency using a pin or nail.
- GFI: all receptacles near water should be on a GFCI. I chose to install a GFCI receptacle near one end of the sink that protects all of the downstream receptacles. And yes, I have LOTS of receptacles in my darkroom.
- cabinets and counters: I used inexpensive stock kitchen cabinets from Lowes. I purchased a piece of roll-formed laminate top from a clearance center to make the cabinet tops. An alternate counter top is particle board - it's absolutely flat, and works quite well with a couple of coats of polyurethane varnish to contain dust. Not bad looking either.
- the floor: there are two requirements for the floor. One is that it needs to be treated to deal with splashed liquids and to manage dust. In the case of a basement darkroom, the choices are either to paint the concrete or install some kind of vinyl flooring. I opted for vinyl - the cost of vinyl was about the same as the cost of special concrete floor paint, and it was easier to install vinyl tiles than to etch and paint the floor. But the second consideration is comfort. Concrete is very hard, and after a few hours your knees and legs start to complain. I ended up covering the vinyl with an inexpensive rubber mat material - 2' interlocking squares about 1/2" thick that is actually quite comfortable.
- general layout: kitchen planners talk about the triangle between the sink, cooktop and fridge. Similar principle applies in darkrooms - the enlarger is the apex of the triangle, while the sink is the base. Conceptually simple, but there are sill lots of ways to fit that triangle into a space. What you have to do is look carefully at the structure to determine if there are other factors that would govern where the apex and base have to be. The location of the sink may be influenced by where the water lines come into the darkroom, and by the location of the drain. The location of the enlarger may need to take into account the need for maximum ceiling height (so that you can elevate the head to the top of the column) and by the need to provide structural rigidity. I chose to mount my enlarge on a shelf that is rigidly attached to a wall. I also had to work around a ceiling beam that supports the floor joists for the room above the darkroom; I opted to drop the ceiling below the beam, and then frame out a hole in the dropped ceiling over the enlarger in order to maximize the height in that area.
- windows and walls: not a problem in my current darkroom, but in our former home I had a basement window that I had to remove and then close up with cinder blocks. I chose to erect walls all around the darkroom rather than rely on the concrete basement wall - better control of dust and humidity. In our former home, the main drain to the septic system was behind one of these walls, and there was a cleanout where it penetrated the basement wall. So I chose to build a removable panel in the wall to allow access to that cleanout - - - just in case! Wall and ceiling color: white everywhere except the area immediately behind the enlarger which is flat black.
- general space; whatever you build will initially look large, but five years later will be cramped. Try to think ahead to identify possible future requirements, and make provisions for growth.
- other: I like having a radio in the darkroom. Also have a telephone so that if I'm working with no one else in the house, I can get to the phone without opening the door. Have thought about an intercom to the kitchen upstairs, but so far the need has not been there. Have lots of phosphorescent tape (or paint) on various things (switches, telephone, enlarger timer, wet-side timer, etc) around the darkroom - doesn't bother film, and makes it possible to find things in the dark. Have a sheet of "homosote" on one wall that I can pin up work-prints.
Just a word or two about large sized sinks
1) MAKE A PLYWOOD FORM THEN LINE IT with shower pan material (plumbing supply)
2) " " with a metal box of galvanized steel sodering the corners to seal them.
3) " " have a a/c shop produce the pan (above) as they (metal duct working) generally supply drip pans for used to capture condensate from the a/c units.
good idea hut wouldn't running the grey water through a de-ionizing unit & recirculating it be better? This would in effect make the processing wash water recycled (long term) & collecting material from the electrodes would (short term) recycle silver content. This would reduce ecological contaminatination?PS: The other solution is to install a reservoir to store gray water from the darkroom, and a pump to then move that gray water up to a level where it can flow into the house drain. Home Despot and Lowes sell "laundry tray pumps" that are ideal for this application, or you can cobble something using some kind of storage tank (a Rubbermaid bin works well) and a sump pump.
Some other things to think about:
Last edited by Clay Turtle; 5-Jun-2008 at 06:07. Reason: PS
I can't disagree with the principle that you want to minimize release of contaminants to the environment.
But I don't think you need to treat 100% of the darkroom effluent.
As a practical matter, the concern in a typical black and white darkroom revolves around silver and selenium. Selenium is easy - just use selenium toner until it becomes exhausted, which means that (nearly) all of the selenium content has been transferred to prints. The resulting effluent is not an environmental hazard - and in fact is supposed to be very good for roses and certain other flowering plants in the garden.
Silver is another matter, but if you are processing to archival standards, most of the effluent silver will be trapped in exhausted fixer, and dealing with a small quantity of used fixer is far more practical than dealing with all of the gray water leaving a darkroom. You can do a pretty good job of deslivering used fixer by simply dropping in a bit of steel wool and letting it sit for a few days. The silver content will precipitate out as sludge, and the remaining liquid can be safely added to the gray water stream.
The other chemicals used in a darkroom - developer, fixer, hypoclear, etc - are relatively innocuous, and the actual volume of those chemicals is minute compared with the total volume of gray water.
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