Two part darkroom

[Kilgallb]

I have a 6x8 darkroom with a sink and 4x5 beseler enlarger. There is an adjacent 10x12 utility room but plumbing is not practical.

I was thinking of removing the dry area of the darkroom to get more space and moving the dry area to the larger room. I thought I could do the enlarging exposure in the dry room and then put the exposed paper in a box and move o the wet room.

it is also far cheaper than a full new darkroom.

Has anyone never done this? I would like to know the pitfalls of this approach.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

My darkroom is only a little larger than yours. 8x10 feet. I think it would drive me nuts if I had to box up an exposed piece of photo paper, and then move it to another room to develop it. When I had my darkroom in Japan, it had no plumbing. I had to cart water in, and also carry exposed prints from the darkroom into the bathroom to wash. I never really got used to that.

 

[Hilo]

Around 1980 I worked in a professional two-rooms darkroom in Paris. In one room were three enlargers (Focomats Ic and IIc, and a 4x5 enlarger, probably a Beseler). Each enlarger had its own timer. This room had no windows. The second room had two large sinks, the first for the trays with chemicals, the second for washing. The door between the two rooms was open most of the time and it had a clock on it that we used as soon the exposed print went into the developer. My job was the wet part: I was either given the exposed print, or I went into the first room and collected it from a drawer the printer had put it in.

The clock was vital because we could both see it. The second room had windows to a courtyard and we had blinded the windows with red foil. This meant we could see the courtyard which was great because there were days we worked here from 8am to 8pm. In addition to the red foil we had installed these black roller blinds for when the sun was too strong.

When the door was closed it was 100 percent dark in the first room, this was where we loaded film into developing tanks . . .

One of the bigger jobs we'd do was print editions. Editions of up to 100 prints of one negative. Closing the door was vital for that because, after tests, the printer would only expose all the sheets and put them in a box in a drawer. Doing that number of prints could take hours and I would be in a third room doing other work, retouch, pressing prints flat, cutting up film, etc. But once he had finished printing the edition of one negative I went back into the second room and processed them. All at once, that is another story.

These days my darkroom is in my workspace, which is one large room. I am able to make it all dark. I like it a lot to move around in a very large darkroom, it is a different story. More space means more dust. One needs to keep it clean . . .

Each room must have been about 3x3meters ...

 

[albada]

If you remove the door between the two rooms (or leave it open), you will have a large darkroom consisting of two sections. Perhaps you could put the enlarger by the shared wall in the dry section, and put the developer by other side of that wall in the wet section. This layout would require you to walk only a few steps to carry an exposed paper from enlarger to dev-tray.
Mark Overton

 

[MattKing]

In a perfect world, you would put a rotating darkroom door between the dry and the wet sections.
That actually is a good solution for group darkrooms, because you can set up each enlarger station in a way that allows localized safelights to be off during printing times.
I've worked in a couple of school darkrooms that were set up that way.

 

[freecitizen]

My Darkroom consists of two adjoining rooms. One is the dry room where no liquids or chemicals ever enter. The other is the wetroom with sinks and chemicals.

An exhaust fan installed in reverse so it blows air into the Darkroom dry room keeps that room free of odours from the wetroom. There is an extractor fan in the wetroom above the sink. Air flows into the dryroom, through the connecting doorway and out the wetroom taking fumes from the sink with it. When not in use, the connecting door is kept shut.

No fumes from the wet area ever get into the dryroom. The dryroom holds all my paper, optics or other items which might suffer from substances like acetic acid, toner fumes or fixer in the air.

This arrangement has worked very well for some years now.

 

[Frank53]

I have a 6x8 darkroom with a sink and 4x5 beseler enlarger. There is an adjacent 10x12 utility room but plumbing is not practical.

I was thinking of removing the dry area of the darkroom to get more space and moving the dry area to the larger room. I thought I could do the enlarging exposure in the dry room and then put the exposed paper in a box and move o the wet room.

it is also far cheaper than a full new darkroom.

Has anyone never done this? I would like to know the pitfalls of this approach.

My darkroom is only slightly larger than yours, 6x9, and everything is there. You don’t have to move around a lot. Personally I would not like the idea of having to go to another room to do the wet work.

 

[Tom Kershaw]

My darkroom is all one space. What I would consider if building again might be a smaller additional room to store paper, lens etc. with a long bench for loading film, that was easy to clean.

 

[bdial]

Separate dry and wet areas is not uncommon, especially for film handling, but a lot of us don’t have the luxury of that much space. Can you put in a door between the two rooms, and have both dark at the same time? That would eliminate the step of boxing your paper to get to the processing area. It might also help in reducing the chances of fogging your paper supply if you happen to forget to cover it when you go next door for processing it.

 

[Sirius Glass]

A bedroom serves as my dry darkroom and a master bathroom is my wet darkroom.

 

[Pieter12]

I have a darkroom in the back of my garage. There is no plumbing, I bring water in in 1-gallon jugs, drain used chemicals into 1-gallon jugs. Washing is done outside. It has worked for me just fine for years now. I'd love to have a sink and plumbing, but the joy is in making the print, the rest is just a matter of convenience.

 

[DMJ]

I have the same problem where plumbing is not practical. I would have to extend the main or have a small septic tank installed just for that. What I do is separate the washing from the development part. So I have the enlarger and the dev/stop/fix trays in one room and then wash in the other room (garage) next to it where I have a sink. I have the trays over a big dog crate pan to contain spills. There are also industrial spill containment trays available that are much better than what I have now. So you can have the enlarger and trays in the big room and then do the washing where you already have the sink.

 

[logan2z]

A bedroom serves as my dry darkroom and a master bathroom is my wet darkroom.

Exactly the same for me. I use a paper safe for transporting the exposed print to the wet darkroom. Not a big inconvenience.

 

[Pieter12]

Exactly the same for me. I use a paper safe for transporting the exposed print to the wet darkroom. Not a big inconvenience.

I don't have the patience to shuttle paper around. You only need running water for washing. And even then, you can use the Ilford system.

 

[logan2z]

I don't have the patience to shuttle paper around. You only need running water for washing. And even then, you can use the Ilford system.

I primarily split the two spaces because I don't have any ventilation in the spare bedroom I use for the dry space. It wasn't due to lack of running water.

 

[cowanw]

My 8x10 enlarger ( and 5x7 and new 4x5) is in what used to be a basement recreation room and the regular dark room is separate and under the porch. The entry way to both is at the bottom of the stairs and not really dark. I transfer my exposed paper in an old 8x10 beseler colour roller tube or a longer Jobo tube for bigger sheets. Gives me time to think while walking. It really is not an issue.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I don't have the patience to shuttle paper around. You only need running water for washing. And even then, you can use the Ilford system.

I primarily split the two spaces because I don't have any ventilation in the spare bedroom I use for the dry space. It wasn't due to lack of running water.

I do not have a ventilation fan in the dry darkroom. If carrying an exposed sheet of paper in a box is too much effort for you, then darkroom work is not for you. You really should look into taking up knitting or quilting.

 

[Pieter12]

I do not have a ventilation fan in the dry darkroom. If carrying an exposed sheet of paper in a box is too much effort for you, then darkroom work is not for you. You really should look into taking up knitting or quilting.

There is no need for that kind of personal attack here. I said nothing about the effort involved. I would rather spend my time making prints than packing them up on a box and going off to another room to develop them.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I don't have the patience to shuttle paper around.

 

[Pieter12]

and what part of that quote refers to the effort involved?

 

[Brendan Quirk]

You do not need to put your trays in a sink - just don't spill much! Seriously, I put my trays on an old piece of kitchen counter (Formica). After the fixer, I put them in a bucket of water and do the toner, wash etc. later and elsewhere. Works well for fiber; not so well for RC (too much wet time).

 

[logan2z]

I do not have a ventilation fan in the dry darkroom. If carrying an exposed sheet of paper in a box is too much effort for you, then darkroom work is not for you. You really should look into taking up knitting or quilting.

Not sure why you quoted my post. I'm the one who earlier said I also have a two-room darkroom and walk my print from the dry space to the wet space in a paper safe.

C'mon Sirius, keep up here

 

[Sirius Glass]

Not sure why you quoted my post. I'm the one who earlier said I also have a two-room darkroom and walk my print from the dry space to the wet space in a paper safe.

C'mon Sirius, keep up here

I agree and I do the same thing, even putting the trays on a plywood board over the two sinks.

 

[logan2z]

I agree and I do the same thing, even putting the trays on a plywood board over the two sinks.

I use a Nova slot processor that lives permanently in the bathroom since it's footprint is so small.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I use a Nova slot processor that lives permanently in the bathroom since it's footprint is so small.

I use trays for paper. One day I will get around to developing color prints in the Jobo processor in the kitchen.