How do you cope with no running water in darkroom?

tkamiya · Jan 26, 2010

My darkroom does not have running water. The way I cope with this is that I have a large plastic tub (the kind that was originally designed to fit under beds for storage) on plastic folding table and in it, I have 3 trays. I also have a large tub with few inches of water for wash. This is my wet side.

Basically, I bring exposed paper, put it through dev, stop, and fix, then goes into this last tub of water. Prints will sit there for up to 3 hours before I take them to bathroom and give them good wash under running water.

I explained all this to ask THIS question -
Other than having contractor come in and put in a sink, or run a garden hose though my living room, are there better ways I can make this system work? What do folks with no running water in darkroom do?

Sirius Glass · Jan 26, 2010

tkamiya said:
Basically, I bring exposed paper, put it through dev, stop, and fix, then goes into this last tub of water. Prints will sit there for up to 3 hours before I take them to bathroom and give them good wash under running water.

That is what I do since the sink is covered by a plywood board so I can lay out the trays. After a while, I transfer the prints to the bathtub where I have a tray with a Kodak tray siphon.

Steve

bumbersdad · Jan 26, 2010

Instead of plain water, you might want to soak the prints in hypo clearing agent. I wouldn't leave them too long, though. But think about this -- three hours is a long time to leave your prints in fixer-laden water. You might also think about a large container for water. There are 2.5 and 5 gallon containers that are pretty readily available.

jgjbowen · Jan 26, 2010

Sirius Glass said:
That is what I do since the sink is covered by a plywood board so I can lay out the trays. After a while, I transfer the prints to the bathtub where I have a tray with a Kodak tray siphon.

Steve

I did just as Steve did, then I wised up and built a new house with a plumbed darkroom

tkamiya · Jan 26, 2010

jgjbowen said:
I did just as Steve did, then I wised up and built a new house with a plumbed darkroom

Yeah, that would be very nice. Just a tiny bit impractical at this moment.

tkamiya · Jan 26, 2010

bumbersdad said:
Instead of plain water, you might want to soak the prints in hypo clearing agent.

Is there such thing for prints? I know Kodak's Hypo clearing agent is for film only. I print RC only, so I'm not sure if this is a huge problem.

RalphLambrecht · Jan 26, 2010

tkamiya said:
My darkroom does not have running water... What do folks with no running water in darkroom do?

That will get old quick! I'm not that dedicated. Call a plumber.

Oh, you didn't want to hear that. Sorry.

Anyway, call a plumber and find out what the obstacles really are, before you put up with this and eventually lose the passion for the darkroom.

RalphLambrecht · Jan 26, 2010

tkamiya said:
Is there such thing for prints? I know Kodak's Hypo clearing agent is for film only. I print RC only, so I'm not sure if this is a huge problem.

Who says HCA is for film only? Actually, it's most useful with fiber-base paper. You can use it with film but you don't need it for RC.

tkamiya · Jan 26, 2010

RalphLambrecht said:
Who says HCA is for film only?

My mistake. Kodak actually says for film and non-resin coated papers. Ralph, concerning RC paper ONLY, how long in water is too long?

removed account4 · Jan 26, 2010

my suggestion is to not wait until the end of your printing session to rinse your prints.
every 3rd or 4th print you might consider a "run" and stop printing and finish the process.
you don't want to leave prints in a weak fix bath for a long time ( your water holding bath becomes a dilute fix bath ... )
seeing that you are printing rc paper, it doesn't take very long to wash / finish them and do another few prints.

Rick A · Jan 26, 2010

If you can, transfer the prints from the first water holding tub to a second with fresh water at most every half hour. You might even think about several holding trays in the kitchen or bath and make a production line chang ing prints and water on a constant interval, until the first prints come out of the wash on the 5th or 6th change, and keep moving small batches down the line. This would also serve to give you a break every so often to get fresh air in the work room.

Rick

MattKing · Jan 26, 2010

jnanian and rainphot have it right.

Wash your prints quickly (1-2 minutes) and then put them into a rack to dry.

If you want to be specially careful, you can always re-wash the entire batch at the end of the day, or soon after, if you intend to tone them.

I worked the same way you do (in a dedicated room with a sink outside) for years.

Matt

Curt · Jan 26, 2010

tkamiya said:
My darkroom does not have running water. The way I cope with this is that I have a large plastic tub (the kind that was originally designed to fit under beds for storage) on plastic folding table and in it, I have 3 trays. I also have a large tub with few inches of water for wash. This is my wet side.

Basically, I bring exposed paper, put it through dev, stop, and fix, then goes into this last tub of water. Prints will sit there for up to 3 hours before I take them to bathroom and give them good wash under running water.

I explained all this to ask THIS question -
Other than having contractor come in and put in a sink, or run a garden hose though my living room, are there better ways I can make this system work? What do folks with no running water in darkroom do?

Can you give us some specifics on where the printing is taking place and do you own the house etc.. Have you looked for a portable sink on wheels similar to a portable dishwasher. Is it located with an out side wall?

Either you bring in water to the darkroom or you take your materials out to be process in another area. You could make a cart with two tanks, one for fresh water and one for waste. One on top of the other. That would only give you a limited flow and is the least efficient. It would work for drawing water and dumping it out. You would have to take the cart out to dump the waste and fill the fresh but it would give you water in there.

If you owned the house you could, if it is located on an outside wall, put in a utility sink and tap, home depot, Lowe's, and run the garden hose from the outside. You would need to run a drain with a trap to the outside and direct it to the sewer or tank to be dumped in a sewer.

As you can see having a real sink is like heaven to a photographer in the darkroom.

Curt

tkamiya · Jan 26, 2010

I'm really NOT wanting to modify my house at this moment. I just might have to do few at a time and go wash more frequently. From what I saw in 'Darkroom Portrait" thread, I know there are many of us in similar situations. I wanted to know how others managed in their environment.

If I do commit to modify my house, there IS a relatively easy way for me to have running water as my office is right next to bathroom. I can swap my darkroom and office, move everything over, then connection should be easy. Right now, I'm not ready to do this. In the mean time, I'll just have to limp along.

phenix · Jan 26, 2010

The gelatin washes fast. This is why, with RC papers, where the fixer is only in the gelatin, a short washing time is just fine. On the contrary, FB papers need to be washed much more because the fixer is in the paper and the baryta too, even much more than in the gelatin itself, and more difficult to get reed of it. But for FB there is the HCA, which saves a lot on washing. Back to RC, these are resin-coated on the front and the back, not on the edges, which means that the paper in this sandwich will swell at the edges if kept too much in water.

In conclusion, for FB, I would use an HCA additional try and two washing tubs, like ralnphot mentioned it above. For RC, I would use instead of the HCA a simple water try to get reed of the fixer sticking to the print’s surface, than two tubs of water to wash the gelatin. Like with the FB, just that the RCs need less time to sit in there. You cannot imagine how dramatic the fixer residues decrease in the second washing tub. But of course, this is not for an unlimited print quantity.

I too, do this during night enlarging sessions, when running water does a lot of noise for people around who want to sleep. I also did see this done by my cousins, in the countryside, over 50 years ago, when I was a child, when they had no running water yet. I still have prints (FB, of course) from that period and they are just fine, no staining and no fading.

redrockcoulee · Jan 26, 2010

Currently I leave my prints in water and every half hour or so I take them downstairs to the tub to wash. A slop pail for waste water and a container of fresh water is my plumbing. But I also have our nephew staying with us while he is taking his schooling for his 4th year plumbing so perhaps this weekend or next I may have running water. Got some to hang up to dry right now.

grahamp · Jan 26, 2010

I don't have plumbed water or drainage. My sink dumps into a large bucket that is larger than the amount of water in my stock tanks (reduces the chance of flooding...). Prints move through a rinse into a holding tray with some sodium sulphite (I usually have that on hand, but not always HCA). Every couple of hours they get transferred to the Versalab in the main house. And I get a bathroom break, a cup of tea, and a chance to reflect on the new masterworks

I work with fibre base paper mostly, so an hour or two wet is not a big deal.

2F/2F · Jan 27, 2010

My water is two rooms away from my enlarger. Next to the table with the enlarger, I have an old oven/stove that I cover with plastic, then cardboard, then paper towels. The developer, stop, and first fixer sit on that. I then move prints to the second fixer, which I keep on the top shelf of a rolling cart. On the middle shelf, I have a holding tray full of water, where the prints go and sit after the second fixer. When I am ready to wash, I bring the holding tray into my bathroom, two rooms away. I set up a hypo clear tray on the sink if I am doing fiber. Once that is done (I use Ilford's suggested method), I dump the holding tray and refill it with fresh water, then the hypo cleared prints go back into the rinse tray and I run my print siphon (connected to my bathroom faucet; the trim ring is permanently removed) into the tray while shuffling the prints for about 5 minutes. When the wash is ready to go, I run the washer outside connected to a hose, so the waste water at least goes into my garden instead of down the drain.

thisismyname09 · Jan 27, 2010

I look at every print in normal light, so closing the box of paper, opening the door, and taking the print one room down to a tub of running water is not a problem for me.

Steve Smith · Jan 27, 2010

tkamiya said:
Other than having contractor come in and put in a sink, ...........................are there better ways I can make this system work?

Yes. Plumb it in yourself and save the cost of a contractor.

I used my darkroom for a couple of years before I put in a water supply and waste so it can be done. You just needs buckets for fresh water and waste water and somewhere to fill and empty them.

I do the final print washing either in the bath or in the shower.

Steve.

cbphoto · Jan 27, 2010

I have a workbench in my bedroom that holds the enlarger and slot processor on the top shelf, paper and supplies on the second shelf, and drying racks on the bottom. I transfer prints from the processor to a tray in the bathtub (different room) for rinsing. I have duvetyne over the door with velcro, so I can just pull it back to go in and out between prints. I also have duvy covering my laptop and stereo receiver displays for music, and have installed a pull-up bar for those long exposures

removed account4 · Jan 27, 2010

rc paper tends to separate at the corners if they soak for too long.

stillsilver · Jan 27, 2010

The edges of the paper will absorb the holding water which now is a weak fixer. If you don't increase washing times, you could have stains down the road.

Mike

markbarendt · Jan 27, 2010

tkamiya said:
Basically, I bring exposed paper, put it through dev, stop, and fix, then goes into this last tub of water. Prints will sit there for up to 3 hours before I take them to bathroom and give them good wash under running water.

I have a slightly different process. I came up with it watching my color prints clear in the wash then added that step to my B&W list.

After the fix I do a three bath wash. The first two baths (normal trays) go for about a minute each continuously agitated. After 8 to 10 sheets #1 gets dumped in a slop bucket, #2 becomes #1 and fresh water is used for the new #2 bath. #3 is a larger bucket like your holding bath where they stay for 15-30 minutes then they get hung.

What I got to watch with the color process was how fast the fix came off the print (about 15-30 seconds for all the red stuff to come off and the paper would look clean) then I just guessed at a 2 times clearing rule for the time and added the #2 bath.

In the color process I can't see any red in the holding bath so I am pretty confident that there isn't enough fix there to matter.

I've been thinking about adding #4, another tray, for 1 minute before hanging and skipping running water all together.

RalphLambrecht · Jan 27, 2010

tkamiya said:
My mistake. Kodak actually says for film and non-resin coated papers. Ralph, concerning RC paper ONLY, how long in water is too long?

Ilford stated a maximum wet time in the past. I have seen corner peel after 8-10 minutes, but this includes all wet processes (dev, stop etc). This is no issue if you trim the borders afterwards anyway but ugly and contaminated if you don't.

How do you cope with no running water in darkroom?

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