New darkroom

[photographs42]

Maybe something like this might work. It leaves the walkway 30 in at its narrowest point. I like the way it looks on paper and it definitely helps with the elbow room.

That looks better to me. As for the wall cabinets, I suggest making cardboard box surrogates and tack them up to get a feel for the effect.

I’m not sure why, but I load film on the enlarging easel (20x24). My enlarger is attached to the wall so I don’t have a baseboard.

As for the Cowboy music, I’m an Architect and whenever I’m on a job site where the dry wall people are working they are listening to Cowboy music, so I figure it must be a requirement. I checked and there is nothing in the building code about it.

Jerome

[k_redder]

That looks better to me. As for the wall cabinets, I suggest making cardboard box surrogates and tack them up to get a feel for the effect.

I’m not sure why, but I load film on the enlarging easel (20x24). My enlarger is attached to the wall so I don’t have a baseboard.

As for the Cowboy music, I’m an Architect and whenever I’m on a job site where the dry wall people are working they are listening to Cowboy music, so I figure it must be a requirement. I checked and there is nothing in the building code about it.

Jerome

I'm really happy with the way the sketch looks with the enlarger in the center of the dry side, so I drew this up to get a better feel for the way the space will look when it's done. Now if only I can get the actual space to look as finished as the drawing, I'll be getting somewhere. Well, back to the drywall...

[Monty McCutchen]

Hello Kurt,

You may be aware of this already but on APUG there is a whole thread with almost 600posts, many of which are pictures of other's darkrooms and the comments that accompanied their thoughts that went into them. If you have some time it might be enjoyable to look through the 'darkroom portraits' and see what you might want to include in your design. It is a great resource for different ideas.

best,

Monty

http://www.apug.org/forums/forum43/1...portraits.html

[PBimages]

Just spotted this thread, so I thought I would add my partly completed darkroom to it, the basic construction is a 7 foot x 5 foot wooden shed, that has been waterproofed, insulated and plasterboarded and skimmed over!

It contains a wet area with cold running water and drainage and a resonably sized dry area, it even has a fridge in it, for Film and paper storage!

The shed is mounted 10 inches in the air, due to a rat problem that we have round here, so it does at least have space for the dogs to run underneath.

it should be finished either this week, or next week!

Colour scheme used, Matt Black round the Dry area, and Matt White everywhere else!

I'll post the finished images when it's finished!

[Clay Turtle]

Looks real good but I don't see venting needed to keep moisture from accumalating in the dark cool area you have produced? Alot of trouble tends to manifest themselves when people started to seal their homes to conserve energy down here in the South!

[PBimages]

There is a door vent not shown on the images and an extract fan behind "Phil the Plasterer" it's positioned at roof hight and is vented out the other side at floor level that way the plasterboard forms a light trap!

I now have it pretty much finished, installed the enlarger only for the lamp to blow but there again it has been in storge since 1999, so I did sort if expect it the new lamp arrived this morning!







This is before I installed the enlarger, I will post some more images hopefully this week somethime of the finished darkroom, but at the moment I have some college assignments I need to finish first!

[Jrewt]

Lookin good! I wish I could 'build' a darkroom, I have a huge space that I use for my DR, but it's 'built' with heavy duty metal shelving from home depot. I tried to build a stand for my 5 foot fiberglass sink, and failed so miserably that I didn't even attempt to break into the water line so's I could get running water in there. Have fun in there!

Cheers

[PBimages]

I plan on having fun in there, but at the moment the only enlarger I have goes upto 6cm x 6cm negatives so I need to find a way of printing from 5" x 4" Negatives, my scanner cannot scan that large so I have a problem!

But at least I can load the film, take the pictures and happily develope the film so it should be fun in there, and with the ventilation now installed it should be almost fume free!

As once I am in there, there is no-way anyone else can enter the room unless I unlock the door from the inside, I had to make the shed/darkroom that secure as the local idiots round here would break in and smash my equipment for the hell of it, as they would not be able to sell any of it!

[PBimages]

Here is the finished Darkroom, including my equipment... OK the enlarger works upto medium format, but untill I locate a Cheap Large Format it will do for the time being!







The images show the darkroom inside and out, as you can see the on the images the Yellow Hose Pipe is the water supply with the white waste pipe... the used chemicals are being dumped into a seperate container and disposed of seperatly with the mains water being used to water the Lawn.

Be nice to hear any comments or improvements people would make to it!

[neil poulsen]

Very cool!

Can you make the window bigger, a little wider? It would be neat being able to look out as you work.

On storage space, is there really that much that you actually need in the darkroom? You have a lot of storage area. You could perhaps "add" space by cutting down on darkroom storage.

From one of the photos, it looks like you have forced air coming into the room. Will that suffice for an incoming vent? Removing air using a fan requires that the air be replaced by air from the outside.

Consider a metal door. They don't warp like wood one can. So, that might help keep light seals sealed.

As for processing 16x20, you might consider processing in two trays, one for the developer and one for the remaining chemistries. You could have the second full of stop after development. Then replace the stop in order with fixer, hypo clearing agent, etc. Each of these last few chemistries would have their own container. This would maybe give you room for a 16x20 washer at the right of the sink?

Here's my darkroom. It's a little smaller than yours, and at that, there's about a 1.5 square foot utility shaft extending from the wall at the left that prevented me from extending my 4' "The Sink" any further. The dimensions are 6.5'x8.25', which is about 52 usable square feet. (Adjusting for the utility shaft.)

Out of view on the right is a film-drying cabinet.

My moment of glory was when I finished the board hanging on the left wall. All my plumbing and and wet-side electronics are contained on this sheet of plywood that connects to the outside world with two hoses and a plug. I routed all the pipes behind the board and brought outlets through to the front. So, this board hangs on two vertical 2x2's, to allow space for the plumbing. Anyway, when I leave, it leaves.