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Window blackout

zackesch

Member
Allowing Ads
Joined
Oct 12, 2012
Messages
132
Location
Waukesha, WI
Format
35mm
At this point in time, I have enough negatives and prints that I am looking forward to doing to try my hand at printing black and white for the first time. Gatta say, its pretty exciting.

My plan is to black out the guest room because thats where my enlarger and support equipment are, and develop the prints in the bathroom. The bathroom is a walk in dark bag when both doors are shut so thats a non-issue. The guest bedroom has one window and the door. I am aware that there is black out fabric, but I was also wondering about pleather or vinyl. I know 3mm black contractor plastic can be used, but cloth would be preferred. Since this will be in an apartment, it cannot be permanently mounted or put holes in the wall. my thought would be to use wide blue masking tape to tape the material to the wall for the period of time around the window. The door can simply be draped over and maybe find a way I can jam something in the upper door molding to hold the material.

Any thoughts, comments or ideas?
 
I use one layer of construction plastic from the hardware store and two layers of black felt from the fabric store.

Started with two layers of felt and sandwiched plastic in-between as an afterthought because the felt wasn't opaque enough.

The felt gives a warm feel to the blackout, more a "decor" decision than a practical one. The black plastic will block the light, you could give your significant other the choice of fabric, it could be anything. That way it doesn't look tacky.
 
Thanks Bill! I really like that idea. The materials I mentioned can be pricey per yard, but felt is very affordable.
 
If you just need something temporary, you can use cardboard cut from a large box and fit into the window frames. That's what I have done for a number of years and it works well, but it is also in the basement so nobody cares how it looks.

For developing, consider setting up developing trays on a table by your enlarger. You can develop, stop and fix in your dark area and then carry the prints to the bathroom for washing. You don't need a sink for the trays. That way you do not need to have a light safe way to carry the prints to the bathroom or worry about having the bathroom dark. (Teenage daughters and a dark bathroom is a real problem.)
 
i used to be in the same situation as you. i bought some thick rubble sacks from b&q and masking taped a double layer over the window (this doesnt affect any wallpaper thats up). for the door i hung a heavy curtain. the curtain had rings at the top for going through the curtain hanging pole but i hung 2 of those loops on 2 tacks i hammered slightly into the door frame.
 
There's an opaque aluminum foil that can be bought for this purpose. It is thicker and stiffer than household aluminum foil, but it is malleable and easy to work with. Well worth the extra expense, in my opinion. Regretfully I forgot the name of the product, but I'm sure it can be found easily with a Google search.
 
For my setup, I have one 47" x 47" window and one door to cover up, plus a scattering of LED indicators.

For the window I made a simple roll-up arrangement using a couple of yards of cheap black out material from the local Jo-Ann fabric store (I paid about $3.50/yard and had a good half-yard left over). It's pinned to the wall above the window, and rolls up and down on the cardboard tube it came on. When not in use, it's rolled up and held in place with some straps and hooks attached to the wall. This overlaps the window opening by a good 6 inches all around and gets most of the outside light. With the window open a crack and the whole-apartment fan running for ventilation, the blackout material pushes in somewhat and makes a fairly effective light seal. Of course, depending solely on that runs the risk that the fan could be shut off while I'm working.

So, I plan to supplement it with a layer of black felt or similar material, simply velcroed in place over the window frame itself, to knock down the light when it's broad daylight outside to a point where the main blackout blind can finish the job. After sundown it's dark enough outside that the main blind will do the job by itself.

If I was spending a little more money and time on it, I'd set up a 2-layer roller blind arrangement. One inside the window opening, one overlapping the entire window, matt black both sides. If it was my own home and not a rental I'd go with a heavy single layer blind and make a light trap channel for it to run up and down in.

Around the door I combined foam weather stripping with a surround made of duct tape (white, so as not to offend my aesthetically-aware wife too much!). It extends a little beyond the door edges, overlapping the gap between door and frame. Oddly enough, the door gave me more trouble than the window because it's a cheap, flimsy, warped piece of junk. The bottom gap is covered by a removable skirt made of the remnants from my blackout material, about 6" wide and long enough to cover the door width with some overlap. It attaches to the bottom of the door with 3 small bits of velcro and does a fine job of blocking the light.

LEDs that can't be switched off or covered permanently have covers made of blackout material and velcroed in place.

Haven't yet printed as I'm still gathering the bits I need, but I've used the room to load 400 speed film into the processing tank a couple of times without any problems. Everything is completely reversible for when we do move elsewhere.
 
I use masonite sheeting with a wooden frame that press fits into the window opening. Felt stripping around the frame helps add friction and seal out the light. It looks ugly from the outside so I have venetian blinds on the inside of the window to hide the masonite.
 
I had a piece of 2" thick insulating foam cut to the exact dimension of the window so it would fit inside the casing/sill snugly. I then covered the insert with heavy black landscape sheeting- wrapped like a Christmas present. It is supper easy to take in and out, and it also keeps the room cooler and warmer depending on the season.
 
My blocked out window has the inside 'frame' covered with alumin(i)um foil.. the 'overlaps' sealed with gaffer tape... while the 'whole has been covered with 1/4 inch plywood painted black on the outside surface.

My last darkroom (which lasted me just over 20 years) had its window treated the same way... NO PROBLEMS after a total of 30 years of such 'treatment'.

Ken
 

Back when I used the extra bathroom, I used insulating foam. I didn't put anything over it, as it seemed to cut out the light on it's own. It was a North window, so there was no direct sun. I did line the edges with black duct tape which kept the edges from crumbling and helped the fit.
 
I second the black out material from the fabric store. Cheap, effective, easy to use.
 
rrocco said:
I second the black out material from the fabric store. Cheap, effective, easy to use.
Click to expand...

So do I. Here in Australia it is called "triple pass" fabric. It is white with a kind of semi-rubberised-looking backing. It is completely and absolutely light-proof.
 
I picked up blackout today. Well, it really surprised me. It holds up to its name, even with a 50 lumen flashlight directly on it.
 
Aluminium foil. I have a roll of aluminum foil between plastic from somewhere and I have been using it to cover windows for the last 30 years. It works splendidly and no light gets through. If you use cloth or cardboard you need to get it thick enough but with metal you don't have to worry about that.
 
Kevin Caulfield said:
So do I. Here in Australia it is called "triple pass" fabric. It is white with a kind of semi-rubberised-looking backing. It is completely and absolutely light-proof.
Click to expand...

One thing I forgot to mention about this stuff, be careful not to let anything rub against the backing. When I first installed mine, the roll in its "up" position was just below the top of the venetian blind on the window. The cord for pulling the blind up rubbed a spot off the backing which allowed light through! (a bit of electrical tape fixed it, but still...best avoided).
 

I did a similar thing to this years ago - I used the foam with the aluminum reflective surface on one side, which I had facing out, to keep it cool in the summer, I then put a fringe of black plastic sheet to overlap the sides of the window frame. It was fast and easy to put the foam in the window frame and convert the (in my case den) into a darkroom, worked great.
 
Since my darkroom is half my home office, I can't permanently block out the light. I had window inserts cut out of 1/4-inch foamcore, but eventually they started to warp too much. So I made boxes out of 1/2-inch foamcore that fit over the whole window frame, with some strips of blackout cloth around the edges to provide extra light baffle. Easy to put on and take off, works pretty well. Most of the time I'm printing at night, so the light seal doesn't have to be absolutely perfect.
 
I cut a piece of thick plywood and shaped it to the window. Then I put two handles on the back to put it inside the window frame and to pull it out. Then I put blackout cloth on the front with staples into the edge of the wood. I insert the assembly and spread out the blackout cloth around the window and hold the cloth in place with masking tape.
 

If you use black velvet you could paint a picture of St. Ansel on it, or one of Elvis.
 
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