Darkroom cleaning

Kilgallb · Oct 10, 2022

I liken cleaning your darkroom to a woodworker sharpening saws. Kind of mindless, definitely a stress relief and of course, needs to be done.

Jim Jones · Oct 11, 2022

My next-to-last darkroom was a 8x12 area in an unused chicken house. the floor was concrete. Most of the walls and ceiling were covered with very cheap paneling, which also retained the insulation. Rather than consider dust as a problem to be overcome, I thought of it as an aid in the mastery of SpotTone.

koraks · Oct 11, 2022

Vacuum + steam clean floors once a week. Periodically put away items that somehow seem to accumulate automatically on the various work surfaces. Dusting and misc. cleaning...whenever I find it really necessary. Which is not all that often. Utensils & tools are rinsed and put to dry, then stored away after each use, unless next use occurs before they're dry. This happens often. There's usually a bunch of trays and beakers drying next to the sink and never quite making it.

Since this room has only been in use for a little less than a year, many parts of it haven't been cleaned yet. I mean, cleaning more than once a year is rather excessive, by all accounts, isn't it?

@Vaughn, funny you also happened to be making tissue! I just stored mine away. Poured them yesterday afternoon, they dried overnight and this afternoon they were done.

Andrew O'Neill · Oct 11, 2022

When it gets mingy then out comes the vacuum. The counters are wiped down daily, especially the wet side. Dry side can get pretty messy. I can tolerate that for about a month then I'll clean that up, and wipe down the counter. Any time I'm loading sheet film, the counters are spotless, though.

Doremus Scudder · Oct 11, 2022

It's most important to have your darkroom clean when developing (and hanging and drying) film. That said, clean, clean, clean, wipe everything down and then let things sit for an hour or so to let the dust you just stirred up settle. Adding a bit of humidity can help that immensely. I run the hot water for a while. And, I run my air filter as well.

Keeping your solutions dust-free is equally as important. When in doubt, filter.

Doremus

Vaughn · Oct 11, 2022

koraks said:
...

@Vaughn, funny you also happened to be making tissue! I just stored mine away. Poured them yesterday afternoon, they dried overnight and this afternoon they were done.

Mine are not nearly as pretty. I pour at 1.2 ml of glop per square inch of tissue. Thick as a brick...whoops, that's my head, but the tissues are pretty thick too, and take at least 48 hours to dry, with a fan, under drier conditions than I usually have (60 to 70% RH). I pour 12.5" x 19" tissues using 285ml of glop...wet, they weigh a bit!

For the first time in decades, I actually exposed all the way down to the tissue support...not much pigment in the glop.

koraks · Oct 12, 2022

Vaughn said:
I pour at 1.2 ml of glop per square inch of tissue.

The tissues in my photo are about half that. It's what conveniently pools on the paper without any barriers, which I find a convenient way to work. I used to use magnetic signage strips, but ended up just pouring in a marked area and spread using a comb. Ends up at about 20ml for a 5x7" tissue or thereabouts.

Vaughn said:
For the first time in decades, I actually exposed all the way down to the tissue support...not much pigment in the glop.

I'm doing that now...running an exposure test on a tissue with 0.5% India ink. That's not a lot of pigment, indeed. Not a tissue I normally use for B&W, which would be around 1% or even higher if I need more contrast.

High relief is nice, but I find it's a bit of a liability when doing multiple transfers onto the same transparency sheet and then getting them to transfer onto the final support. The initial transfers work OK, but a thick stack getting to stick to the final support is a bit more tricky when it comes to small details...

Vaughn · Oct 12, 2022

One way or the other, hanging sheets of soft gelatin for a day will certainly let one know if one has a floating dust issue in the room! Instead of flypaper, it can be dust paper!

Rick A · Oct 12, 2022

A clean darkroom is highly over rated.

koraks · Oct 12, 2022

@Vaughn ain't that so! So far, it's been pretty clean here. Also I learned not to fuss about some stray dust on my carbon tissues. It adds so much character to a print if it has bits of my body embedded in it.

Rick A said:
A clean darkroom is highly over rated.

Still not as bad as a dark cleanroom!

BobUK · Oct 12, 2022

When I used to develop films and prints in my kitchen you could eat off the floor,
gravy, peas, custard...........

Pieter12 · Oct 12, 2022

koraks said:
@Vaughn ain't that so! So far, it's been pretty clean here. Also I learned not to fuss about some stray dust on my carbon tissues. It adds so much character to a print if it has bits of my body embedded in it.

Still not as bad as a dark cleanroom!

A dark cleanroom would be ideal. Just add equipment and plumbing if possible. I know of one printer who's darkroom resembles JPL.

Vaughn · Oct 12, 2022

I am reminded of Kurt Vonnegut's story from Slapstick about his brother the chemist (and inventor of cloud seeding with silver, or something like that). His laboratory was a safety officer's nightmare...and when admonished by one, "My brother said this to him, tapping his own forehead with his fingertips: "If you think this laboratory is bad, you should see what it's like in here.""

Darkroom cleaning

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Darkroom cleaning

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