Making a UV light source - what bulbs?

[thefizz]

I plan to make a UV light source for Van Dyke and Kallitype printing and wish to know which type of bulbs or tubes are best as I understand there are different types available.

 

[cliveh]

UV.

 

[donkee]

Try here

http://www.alternativephotography.com/wp/darkroom/building-a-uv-printer

 

[Rick A]

Read this
(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

 

[Herzeleid]

Have you read this article
http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/Light/light.html
http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/Light/L2/l2.html

Apparently Kallitypes (and I presume other FO processes as well) benefit from 400nm bulbs, but the rest of the processes benefits from 365nm BL bulbs.

Correction, it seems only kallitypes benefit from 400nm UV bulbs.

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

I use these tubes for cyanotypes, salt printing and Ziatypes.

http://m.petco.com/product/5709/Coralife-Actinic-Fluorescent-Bulbs.aspx#

 

[onnect17]

Nowadays you are better off building your own using multiples 1w 395nm leds from ebay.




Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

 

[thefizz]

Thanks for the information and links.

 

[mjs]

I bought blacklight bulbs from my local Lowe's home improvement store. I believe they are BLB bulbs. I make salt and cyanotype prints. Exposure times for salt prints range from 14 minutes to 28 minutes, depending of course on negative density (some of my early negatives made for alt printing are a little dense as I was experimenting with exposure times and development times to get the best result.) Cyanotypes (traditional process,) are about 10-12 minutes. Lowes had the bulbs for a very good price -- I only paid $5 or so each for them, a couple of years ago.

Mike