What Is Your Home Made Darkroom Item?

[DREW WILEY]

Nearly everything except lenses and a few enlarger chassis. The biggest enlarger is completely homemade except for the lenses. Sink, print
washers, driers, the bigger easels, all either made by me from scratch or at least seriously modified for personal use. I couldn't have afforded
all that stuff otherwise. It was all derived from the Jerry Rigg Correspondence Course on Darkroom Design.

 

[Fujicaman1957]

Ivanlow-

Go to Dead Link Removed and go to "resources" and look for a post by "Fujicaman". I have a list of some of the projects from the old Petersen's Photographic books and magazines. If you find one that interests you, PM me and I'll email it to you.

 

[BMbikerider]

I am able to buy bulk rolls of Kodak RA4 paper at a very much lower cost than the inferior (my opinion) Fuji equivalent in cut sizes. To be able to handle it safely I designed a box large enough to hold a 12" x 30m roll of paper with a snug fitting lid, lined with black felt and a roller to support the paper on internal grooves. The box is made out of 10mm plywood, glued and screwed together and the roller is a wooden Cooks rolling pin cut to size.

At the front of the box at the bottom edge, I cut a slot 2mm deep x the width of the box which I lined with black felt. The slot will allow the paper to be pulled out as required and cut to whatever length I need, using a cheap roller guillotine fixed to the base of the box. When the session is finished, I attach a piece of adhesive tape to the paper edge and retract the leading edge into the box then make it light tight with a sliding lid. As the sensitive surface emerges from the box face down, it can stand quite lengthy exposure to a dim DUKA safelight with no ill effect.

 

[RSalles]

Ivanlow-

Go to Dead Link Removed and go to "resources" and look for a post by "Fujicaman". I have a list of some of the projects from the old Petersen's Photographic books and magazines. If you find one that interests you, PM me and I'll email it to you.

Hi Fujicaman,

If you could send me a copy it would be great,

Renato

 

[SchwinnParamount]

Two things. 1) My enlarger table... I made a last minute adjustment to it with a circular saw when I discovered I made the legs too long to fit it in the darkroom door. 2) My sheet film development timer. I wrote an app for my Android device that does all sorts of cool stuff including text to speech (so the timer could prompt me), voice recognition (so the timer would respond to my spoken commands), cloud connection (so I can store film/developer combo timer configs on Azure)

 

[canvassy]

2) My sheet film development timer. I wrote an app for my Android device that does all sorts of cool stuff including text to speech (so the timer could prompt me), voice recognition (so the timer would respond to my spoken commands), cloud connection (so I can store film/developer combo timer configs on Azure)

that sounds amazing. Any plans to release it?

 

[SchwinnParamount]

that sounds amazing. Any plans to release it?

Yes, I will be releasing it. There's a little bit more debugging to do before I put it into Google Play. I should have that bit done soon. Just have to find the time...

 

[Fujicaman1957]

Of which project ?

 

[Fr. Mark]

Film/print washer, split back contact printing frames, regular contact printing frames, negative holder for 110 and one to try to squeeze a 5x7 into a 4x5 Beseler enlarger without further mods, tanks for dip developing, enlarger lens boards the the aforementioned 4x5, a first attempt at a film registration system using sewing needles (caution, sharp!), converted safelights toLED LIGHTS, several cameras one of which may become the 8x10 enlarger, hacking a temporary light situation to project 4x5's thru a 1/2 plate camera, various household items repurposed for darkroom work, there's probably more. Haven't started making emulsions for taking or printing other than cyanotype so far but some day I hope to.

 

[Steve Roberts]

All of the furniture - bench, drawer, shelves & electrical supplies.
A paper safe which only opens far enough to put/take paper, then closes under gravity, i.e. it doesn't open far enough to be able to leave the lid open without supporting it by hand. I've never investigated commercial paper safes - don't know whether this is something new or whether I've reinvented the wheel. Probably the latter, as there's little new in this life!
A vacuum baseboard for borderless prints on paper held totally flat. This is a 10" x 12" sheet of 1/8th" aluminium in which I drilled 750 1.5mm holes mounted on a shallow wooden box that I made, stained in Spanish Mahogany and French polished (OK, I'm lying about the French polish!). It's connected to a vacuum cleaner sited in the loft that provides the suck.
Steve

 

[Vitoret]

i've built an enlarger timer using Arduino + some knobs + a relay and it starts when a coin is touched

almost 20 euros spent

 

[MattKing]

I have a dodging wand with a cutout on it I made from a head and shoulders photo I took of my math teacher in Grade 10.

That would have been put together from approximately 44 years ago

 

[bence8810]

I built all the furniture myself. I live in Tokyo and space is limited, needed to make sure I can fill up everything with usable surfaces.
Not nearly complete but its already comfortable.

Ben

 

[henpe]

I find the DIY aspect of darkroom work almost as interesting as the printing itself, so over the years I have made a bunch things, including e.g.

• An f-stop timer ( http://www.henpe.se/cms/darkroom/articles/12-fstop )
• A paper-safe
• A dark-room vent
• Drying racks
• A small item to help load two 120-films onto the same Paterson reel
  www.henpe.se/cms/darkroom/odds-ends/15-hjaelp-vid-filmladdning (sorry, but the link is in Swedish)
• Test printer ( www.henpe.se/cms/darkroom/odds-ends/14-testremsor )
• A few different prototypes on D-SLR film scanning device.
• Print washer
  
• ...

Nice thread!

/Henrik

 

[alanegreen]

Back at university I built a digital darkroom stop clock from 4000 series CMOS chips and some red 7 segment LED displays. Much better than anything I could buy then (or now) as they all seemed to have LCB displays and therefore couldn't be seen in the dark. I made the display dimmable so I could use it for colour paper work. Still in use today!

 

[Fujicaman1957]

Hi Fujicaman,

If you could send me a copy it would be great,

Renato

Which plan to you want

Hi Fujicaman,

If you could send me a copy it would be great,

Renato

One of the mod's @ largeformat.com removed my post-PM me with an email address and I'll send you a list.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Let's see... print washers, sink, drum processor, trays and water baths, light boxes, cabinets, dozens of kinds of gadgets, my biggest and fanciest enlarger, all made on premises (that enlarger was a three-year project). It would be easier to list the things I didn't make or modify myself, like enlarging lenses.

 

[polka]

In the "darkroom portraits" I already posted a composite picture of my "antinumeric shelter"
(there was a url link here which no longer exists)
that I built in my garage.

On the right hand picture, you can see how I added a pulley and a antic clockwork weight to my Krokus enlarger to balance the weight of its head in order for it to move smoother.

Paul

 

[ivanlow]

All of the furniture - bench, drawer, shelves & electrical supplies.
A paper safe which only opens far enough to put/take paper, then closes under gravity, i.e. it doesn't open far enough to be able to leave the lid open without supporting it by hand. I've never investigated commercial paper safes - don't know whether this is something new or whether I've reinvented the wheel. Probably the latter, as there's little new in this life!
A vacuum baseboard for borderless prints on paper held totally flat. This is a 10" x 12" sheet of 1/8th" aluminium in which I drilled 750 1.5mm holes mounted on a shallow wooden box that I made, stained in Spanish Mahogany and French polished (OK, I'm lying about the French polish!). It's connected to a vacuum cleaner sited in the loft that provides the suck.
Steve

Wow! The vacuum cleaner is clever design. Wouldn't it be loud when turn it on? I'm also interested in the paper safe design, curious how it looks like. I think you can patent it.

 

[scheimfluger_77]

I decided to quit whining to myself and started working on moveable components for our 54" square powder room downstairs. First item was a work surface. The table in the photo is 18" x 49" x 41" tall. It is mostly finished but I need to put adjustable feet on the bottom. The garage floor is level, the bathroom is not. It's not square but it should suffice, I'm considering a way to put a small (~.5") lip on the top to use it as a secondary containment for fluids; and with a drain.

(Photo Coming later, needs to be resized for upload)

In the past for my minilab I built a 2' x 4' enlarger table when I started doing custom work. At that same time I built a sink that was 2' deep by ~11.5' long. Talk about something heavy. Fortunately I built the pedestal it sat on separately so placement was a little easier.

In the long past I made a 35mm, 2.25 x 2.25, and 4 x 5 negative carriers out of mat board for D2, those worked really well.

 

[scheimfluger_77]

I decided to quit whining to myself and started working on moveable components for our 54" square powder room downstairs. First item was a work surface. The table in the photo is 18" x 49" x 41" tall. It is mostly finished but I need to put adjustable feet on the bottom. The garage floor is level, the bathroom is not. It's not square but it should suffice, I'm considering a way to put a small (~.5") lip on the top to use it as a secondary containment for fluids; and with a drain.

(Photo Coming later, needs to be resized for upload)

In the past for my minilab I built a 2' x 4' enlarger table when I started doing custom work. At that same time I built a sink that was 2' deep by ~11.5' long. Talk about something heavy. Fortunately I built the pedestal it sat on separately so placement was a little easier.

In the long past I made a 35mm, 2.25 x 2.25, and 4 x 5 negative carriers out of mat board for D2, those worked really well.

Crud! Missed the edit deadline

 

[RSalles]

Which plan to you want


One of the mod's @ largeformat.com removed my post-PM me with an email address and I'll send you a list.

Impossible to choose now, as the content of the message was deleted by the forum mod.
Do you have the list of resources originally published on LFPF?

Thanks,

Renato

 

[Fujicaman1957]

Impossible to choose now, as the content of the message was deleted by the forum mod.
Do you have the list of resources originally published on LFPF?

Thanks,

Renato

PM me with a Email address and I'll get a list to you.

 

[Fujicaman1957]

Impossible to choose now, as the content of the message was deleted by the forum mod.
Do you have the list of resources originally published on LFPF?

Thanks,

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

My über-dooper, high-tech film drying rack used to hold film clips.

It's a piece of AWG 12 electrical wire (solid) that I wrapped around a closet rod. Spread the loops out so the clips are at a 45° angle. Bent the ends to hang off a pressure-held shower curtain rod. The removable curtain rod allows me to adjust the height I hang film from in the shower. Down at eye level for 4x5 sheets, up higher for 35mm strips.

It's pure genius.