light sealing a room

[pdphoto]

nevermind on this post. i'm going the ply wood route. thanks

[Greg Lockrey]

black heavy gauge visqueen will be cheaper

[jayabbas]

What is visqueen? I have not heard of such stuff.

[Greg Lockrey]

What is visqueen? I have not heard of such stuff.

Black plastic for gardening or used as drop cloths in painting. Garbage bags are made of the stuff. My spelling could be wrong as the spell check doesn't know it either. :)

[banjo]

black mylar

[Dan Schmidt]

blackout fabric from a fabric store, it is actually white.

[r.e.]

I just finished dealing with the same issue so that I can load sheet film, and develop 35mm/120 in a Kinderman tank, in the bathroom at the apartment that I'm staying at in New York.

The bathroom has a window that is recessed on all four sides. In other words, it is like a box on its side, with a window as the box's bottom. I put black card over the window and used drafting tape (so as to avoid residue) to attach the paper to the wall. During the day, it is obvious that the drafting tape leaks some light. Probably not a problem at night, but out of caution I then put black electrical tape over the drafting tape.

Works fine, but this room needs to function as a normal bathroom 99% of the time. Black card taped over the bathroom window on a permanent basis doesn't quite cut it, which means that I'm going to need to replicate this for every session. If someone has a simpler solution, I'm keenly interested.

[Ebrahiem]

On my darkroom door I hung up a lightproof curtain on a wire about 20 cm above the door, so that it goes well beyond the dimensions of the door at the top and at the sides. Then, in addition to that, in darkroom sessions I hang a long strip of thick black plastic foil on top of the door before closing it, so that it hangs down on both sides (the type of foil used for garden ponds, with a thickness of 1mm). The door is 80cm wide. The foil is about 4m x 0,8m, cut so that one half is slightly wider than the door (2m x 0,9m), the other is slightly narrower (2m x 0,7m). The wider part goes to cover the side to which the door opens, so that it covers the edges; the narrower part goes to the other side so that the door opens and closes easily. That way the foil covers the edges of the door when the door is closed. Whatever light does creep by the foil is blocked by the curtain. If there's light that creeps under the door, I place a strip of foam on the floor during darkroom sessions.

It's kind of a layered approach, like in winter clothing - instead of having one fixed "perfect" layer that blocks all, I use two or three easily removable "imperfect" layers.

[pdphoto]

i went the visqueen route!! and i'm very happy with the results.

Thumbtacked it over the window with a lot of room to spare. taped up the loose ends of the visqueen to the wall with some painters tape. pretty solid set up. thanks for the advice

[Greg Lockrey]

i went the visqueen route!! and i'm very happy with the results.

Thumbtacked it over the window with a lot of room to spare. taped up the loose ends of the visqueen to the wall with some painters tape. pretty solid set up. thanks for the advice

You're very welcome. What I do to hold the visqeen to the wall is cut some 2x24" lengths of matt board and staple them over the visqeen around the edges. In my garage I hang it from the ceiling around the lab. Works great.

[Greg Lockrey]

I just finished dealing with the same issue so that I can load sheet film, and develop 35mm/120 in a Kinderman tank, in the bathroom at the apartment that I'm staying at in New York.

The bathroom has a window that is recessed on all four sides. In other words, it is like a box on its side, with a window as the box's bottom. I put black card over the window and used drafting tape (so as to avoid residue) to attach the paper to the wall. During the day, it is obvious that the drafting tape leaks some light. Probably not a problem at night, but out of caution I then put black electrical tape over the drafting tape.

Works fine, but this room needs to function as a normal bathroom 99% of the time. Black card taped over the bathroom window on a permanent basis doesn't quite cut it, which means that I'm going to need to replicate this for every session. If someone has a simpler solution, I'm keenly interested.
Turn the light on when you have to go to the head.... :D :D

[Wayne]

I bring visqueen and thumb tacks when I go on trips to black out motel rooms or bathrooms.

[John Kasaian]

I used cardboard cut oversized and cram it in place against the window and only work at night.
If it was completely dark, how could i see what I'm doing?

[Jeff Dexheimer]

I just light sealed my apartment. 3 windows and a door. The plastic was $2.50 and the duct tape was $4. I will be able to reuse the plastic and there is plenty of tape left on the roll for several more "darkrooms."

This was my first go at developing so I worked at night. I left the windows covered overnight and when I woke in the morning it was still total darkness inside but broad daylight outside.