Accordian Doors/walls for Darkrooms

[Robert Ruderman]

Hi,

I am planning to build my own darkroom. Currently, I am wrestling with the ques tion of what to use as a divider between the darkroom and well lit laundry room.

One option is to frame a wall and drywall it. I suspect that this is the best s olution for "light-proofing" the darkroom. But I am wondering if it is plausibl e to use a "accordian" divider (on a rail) instead of a framed wall. I am not s ure of the benefits/disadvantages of using a divider of this type (wrt light lea ks, etc.).

I am wondering if anyone uses these movable "accordian" walls/dividers in their darkrooms? If so, what would you recommend?

Thanks, Robert

[Paul Mongillo]

One of the more important things to consider in building a darkroom is keeping it as dust free as possible. Laundry room dryers produce a lot of dust. I don't think its a good idea to give that dust access to your darkroom. I would put up a permenant wall.

[Doremus Scudder]

Robert, I agree with Paul about the dust problem, however, to answer your question, I have a common sliding cavity door that I have light- proofed very well using weather stripping. The weather stripping consists of a round rubber bead about 1/4+ inch in diameter mounted in a metal strip which can be attached with screws to the door jamb. I installed two of these along the top and opening side of the jamb. The one on the side is positioned so that the door has to be forced just a bit to close it completely insuring a good seal. The bottom of the door was a bit trickier (but not much). I installed a squeegee- type strip on the bottom of the door itself so that it just brushes the floor and added a rubber threshold to the floor to complete the light seal. (I have also seen spring-mpounted felt strips for similar applications that would probably also work well.) My sliding door still works great as a door and is completely lightproof when shut. As for the dust problem, maybe you can positively pressurize your darkroom with filtered air coming in from another source so that when the door is open the clean air is blowing out. That and keeping the laundry room squeaky clean (and not running the dryer when you load film!) might be adequate. You'll have to experiment. Hope this helps. ;^D)