At Last! Building Out My Darkroom!

[aoresteen]

Thanks all! Did 8 more rolls last night.

 

[aoresteen]

Disaster Strikes!

Last week Tuesday around 7 PM I was in the middle of processing 8 rolls of film and I realized I was standing in water. Yikes!!!!!!! My first thought was that the dang pipes were leaking again but a quick check revealed that the pipes were not leaking. I looked under the sink and saw water running down the walls and dripping from the under sink support braces.

I shut off the running wash water, finished processing the film the best that I could, and started cleaning up water mess with towels & a sponge. After the floors were dry I inspected the sink with a flashlight and discovered that there were cracks in the caulk seals in the sink seams.

On top of it we were leaving the next morning to fly to Cleveland for a funereal and I would not be back until Friday. When I got back everything was dry and so I began to investigate the cause of the cracks. I found the tube of sealer that I had used and it seems that I used a LATEX sealer on the seams. The latex had cracked. Crap.

This is the 3rd wood darkroom sink I've built and the first two never leaked. I realized that I had used a silicone bath sealer in the first two sinks but for this one I used latex by mistake. Self-inflicted wound


I went to Lowe's and bought a tube of GE 100% silicon Bath Sealer.

http://www.lowes.com/pd_48316-72643-LW5070___?productId=3084969&pl=1&Ntt=ge+silicon+sealer



I had to clear everything out of the sink area and make sure it was dry. It only took 30 minutes to re-seal all the seams. Instructions say wait 12 hours before use. I'm waiting 48.

If this doesn't work I will have to either:

A. Remove the sink and rebuild it using silicone sealer, or

B. Fiberglass all the seams and re-paint the sink.

Neither solution will be fun. Ugh! All this pain over a $6 tube of caulk.


I will test the sink Monday.

 

[Roger Thoms]

To late for this sink, but if you end up building another consider West System Epoxy. Great product and West System has a lot of resources on how to use it.

Roger

 

[aoresteen]

To late for this sink, but if you end up building another consider West System Epoxy. Great product and West System has a lot of resources on how to use it.

Roger

Thanks for the tip. I hope I won't need to use it!

 

[Roger Thoms]

Yeah, hopefully the silicone sealant will do the trick. It should if the joints are structurally sound and just leaking. If the silicone does work just keep an eye on it, as it will occasionally need tuning up.

Roger

 

[skyhawk737]

I'm new to this forum but not to darkrooms. My first experience was out home darkroom 60 years ago and I'm glad to find people still using them.

My photographic interests have reverted to my roots, astrophotography and for that, digital is so much better than film. Film suffered massive reciprocity failure in exposures over a minute. Today, digital image sensors have virtually linear exposure acquisition and you can take a series of 5 or 10 minute exposures and stack them easily.

For astro digital, completely killed film and justifiably, but there remains the seductive magic of film, paper, chemistry and enlarging.

Dave

 

[filmFreak35]

awesome setup!

 

[aoresteen]

The silicon sealer worked, no more leaks! . The print washers and rinse trays are working as well. I'm working to finish developing my back log of film.