Sliding lightproof doors - do they exist?

[foraker]

My wife and I are in the process of deciding on floorplans for a

house. Of course, I am looking at adding that long-desired home

darkroom. I'm looking at being able to claim maybe a space of about

11'x7'. Just out of curiosity, I'm wondering if anyone makes sliding

lightproof doors.....

 

Beyond that, if anyone has any recent experience doing this, are

there any innovative ideas I might want to think about?

[eric_mims]

I recently did this. I actually had plenty of room but wanted as much space as I could. I used a regular pocket door, stained a walnut color (not painted black..ekk...paint your darkroom white!). I added trim around the door on the inside and outside (overlaps door by ~1" on left, right, and top). I made a threshold that transitions from carpet to the darkroom concrete and overlaps the door by about 1". I painted the inside 3 edges of all trim/track/threshold a flat black, and also spray painted the inside of the 'pocket'. I caulked the trim too. I have no light leaks at all. It works great. Just make sure you put the trim and threshold on perfectly so it's as tight to the door as possible while still allowing it to slide without binding. If you use metal studs in the pocket, you might consider using "L" shaped stick-on weatherstripping on the back edge of the door, so as to block any light coming in at a very small angle and bouncing off the stud. Better just to paint it first.

 

Oh yea, I have an anteroom that has a door I can lock, so I do not have a lock on the pocket door. I was going to put a hook lock but thought it might be dangerous if someone needed to get in.

[steve_baggett]

Regal-Arkay makes revolving darkroom doors from 28" to 65" wide, both 2-way and 3-way. They are expensive. They also sell darkroom door light seal kits for regular hinged doors. These even have an automatic bottom-of-door threshold that seals light at the bottom. Beyond that, they also have vinyl laminted block-out curtain that comes with aluminum track. I have one of their catalogs (about 2 years old) that lists all these. They can be reached at: Regal Photo Products - 2769 South 34th St - Milwaukee, WA 53215 - 800-695-2055. Email me directly if you want any of the part numbers, etc.

[dan n.]

for extra safety put double black drapes inside your dark room...

[foraker]

Eric,

I thought about this myself, but had doubts as to whether or not it would work. I did find some place up here in WA that supposedly makes a motorized sliding darkroom door for $700. I'm kind of curious even though that would be almost enough for a nice new lens...

[scott_killian1]

I just expanded my darkroom to 15'x8' as part of a larger rennovation we did in the lower level of my house. Here are some tips that I learned along the way:

 

- I had the firm who installed the counter for my enlarger (the dry side) make me a custom light tight drawer with dividers that will hold 4 paper sizes from 8x10 to 20x24. It has a lock on it and when closed is completely light tight. Most paper safes on the market are poorly made and impractical, but this drawer is dynamite.

 

- After years of messing with manual mixing panels and dealing with temp shift, I upgraded to the Intellifaucet and it works like a charm. Highly recommended product.

 

- Sink: After looking at stainless and the pre-made plastic variety, I had a wooden boat builder make me a sink to my dimensions. It is big enough to hold four 20x24 trays and has a rinsing well and a place for two print washers at the end. Sink was made from marine grade douglas fir and was covered in West Systems epoxy. It is without a doubt the nicest sink I've ever used in a darkroom and cost less than a comprable stainless model. The final product looks like it was modeled in fiberglass.

 

- Per your original question, I simply nailed metal weather-stripping material which has the rubber tubing along the edges to the door frame. As I learned the hard way from the last time I did this, you have to be careful about how much pressure you apply to the door when you put these on - if they push the door out, it creates gaps in other spots and you have to start over. It's a teadious process, but the end result looks nice and is completely light tight. For the bottom of the door, I used a simple device that was given to me by a friend. Hard to describe, but it's made for people to insert under a door leading outside in their house to hold-in the heat. It's essentially two fabric "socks" sewn together with rubber tubing inserted in each "sock". You cut them to size and slide the whole thing under the door. It works like a charm, looks good and didn't require bolting anything to the door.

 

Good luck with the darkroom!

[eric_mims]

Matthew,

Personally, I would save the money and spend it on a good darkroom light, enlarger lens, temperature control device, etc. If you just make sure the door is as tight as possible without binding, you should be fine. Light can't hit the door, turn and go into the recess, turn again under the door, and turn one more time to come out of the recess unless it is reflecting off of shiny surfaces. Another thing you can easily make yourself is print drying screens using fiberglass door screen (home depot has this) and a super simple half-lap frame.

[tundra_slosek]

Something fun that we have at one of the sites where I work - a darkroom entrance with no door at all - it's wide open. And it works, amazingly enough! If I ever get a chance to build my own house, I am definitely going to go this route.

 

Basically, you have a stretch of corridor that makes a light trap, just like a film box. The walls, ceiling and floor are all matte black, you walk along a person-sized maze in the shape of a 'W' - there simply is no straight path for light to get from outside to in, even with reflections from white or reflective clothing. A couple of nice things about this: You can carry on a (slightly muffled) conversation through this. Ventilation is trivial - no special noisy darkroom fans required (though it does nothing to keep dust out). No moving parts. The drawback of course is that it takes up a lot more space than a rotating lightlock, and is more permanent than just throwing a lightlock in an existing doorway.

[tim_atherton2]

You could also be lucky and find an old circular rotating darkroom door for nothing - smaller (and larger) newspapers, high schools, museums, government departments and all sorts are dumping their darkrooms like crazy over the last couple of years as everything goes digital and they want to rennovate and/or free up the space. I've come across two of these in our small town of 18,000 going for nothing (I just had nowhere to use them...). Check out any high schools that are going through rennovations or your local newspaper photo dept. or government surplus equipment sales.

[foraker]

Tim,

I worked, briefly, for one of the national labs (gratefully, in my past). Whilst there, I discovered that their wet lab was going completely digital. I tried to get my hands on some of the darkroom equipment that they were going to sell as surplus. Guess who they ended up giving it to? A local school.....and this was only a couple of years ago.

[mateo_leyba1]

I used an ordinary pocket door in my darkroom/workspace overhaul last year. Like

others have said it does not take much to make it light tight. I used weather strip on

both sides of the door (both verticals and the horizontal). The strip is the type that

has a metal edge with screw holes in it with a rubber bead attached (not as

complicated as that may sound). the rubber is soft enough to push right up against

the door and still allow it to slide very easy while still blocking the light. It looks very

clean.

 

mateo

[bill_phillips1]

My apologies for posting this in a public forum, but I'm trying to find an addy for Eric Mims. The photo.net directory gives two, but mail bounces from both!

 

I have a question for Eric ... if you're there, please contact me.

 

TIA,

Bill Phillips