New Dark Room

[alan802]

Here are some pics of the re-arranged dark room.  It went from a very dark red room to bright with the change out of the red tint light cover and I just left one bulb with 2 amber UB blocking sleeves on it and you can actually see everything in the room now.  I also built the drying racks into the corners so I could move that big rolling cart that we did use to dry freshly coated screens.  It was taking up too much room and we also got rid of the big shelving unit that I put our dryed screens on.  I think a lot of our screens were getting damaged when we would take screens in and out because they would slide against each other and they were arranged in there like books in a bookcase.  I think I'm going to like the current setup better and I have all the screens arranged where if you need a certain screen you don't have to fight to pull it out of the shelf, you just grab the screen and go.

 

[Sbrem]

The dark room I started in was for tray developing films, red lights only    Very nice though to have a nice, clean space for your screens and screenwork. I really did think, for a second, that you were talking about a photo darkroom though. Damn, getting old

Steve

[balloonguy]

Wow! I am jealous. I do not have enough room for something like that here. I have to keep all my screens in dry boxes under the existing tables.
I see that you have both roller and ez frames. Do you have a preference?
Matt

[Frog]

The dark room I started in was for tray developing films, red lights only    Very nice though to have a nice, clean space for your screens and screenwork. I really did think, for a second, that you were talking about a photo darkroom though. Damn, getting old

Steve

You got red lights? 
Wow, with Panchromatic films, it was total darkness! 


Gotta admit though, that Ortho films were way more common, so yes, bordello lighting was the norm, and I've never been in a shop that doubled up their camera space with th screen production and/or storage.

Here we go again, bragging about our history and age like Methuselah!

[alan802]

Wow! I am jealous. I do not have enough room for something like that here. I have to keep all my screens in dry boxes under the existing tables.
I see that you have both roller and ez frames. Do you have a preference?
Matt

If I really had to have just one, I'd go with the newmans, but there are some great benefits of the EZ's.  I like having ultimate control over the roller frames but I don't take advantage of that ability as much as I should.  The shurlocs are nice because they hold much higher tension than statics, and you don't have to worry about retensioning them (they can be retensioned once).  You just stretch them up and let them go, it's peaceful that way.  With the newmans, I'm constantly checking them to see if any need retensioning and it takes time and energy to do that.  The EZ's are heavy though, much heavier than the new M3's.  I can carry 3 EZ's around with one hand but it's really hard, and the M3's are a breeze to carry 3 with one hand.

I highly recommend both frames, and I could live with a shop that used nothing but the EZ's, no doubt and I'd be happy, but I'm also a control freak over a lot of the variables we deal with and that's where the newmans get my vote.

[Dottonedan]

Love it. I happen to be considering how I am to build my screen room now.  I'm wondering, are you just starting to add in the frame holders along the wall or do you store them on the ground leaning against the wall once dried?

I will have about a 4' x 9' space.   

[ScreenFoo]

Very nice. 
Working on a little restructuring of the little 'light safe' screen room here, but it will never look that clean.   (if I have anything to do with it )

I do like the 'bookshelf' style of screen storage, but only space-wise storing them under a counter--when you stack against the wall corner to corner like that, it's definitely a safer way to do it.

[Dottonedan]

My contribution to this thread should be placed on a new post since I unintentionally derailed it. I'll make the move later.

My real post for this thread should have been to say, how much I would like to have what Alan has in a dark room and more so, the customers that make it needed. . I like the wall mounts. That will be useful for my all area.

[stitches4815]

Hey Alan, thanks for posting the pics.  I have been contemplating putting some wood strips in the corner of my dark room.  Now that I see it I know I will do it.

[ScreenFoo]

How much extra space did you keep from the frame profile?

Neat idea, for sure.

(I love the paper towel rack too  )

[ZooCity]

Alan I got to ask if you think this storage technique damages your mesh?  I implemented an iron-clad rule that screens are only allowed to rest: on press, on their racks, in the dry box, in the washout, in the dip tank, on the coating stand or on the roller master.  It has practically eliminated mesh damage along the rollers.

I've always loved to corner racking idea and storing bookshelf style for statics but not for rollers.

Sent from my intelligent phone-a-majigger.

[whitewater]

Alan,  Thanks..I like how you did that in the corner...

[mooseman]

Alan I got to ask if you think this storage technique damages your mesh?  I implemented an iron-clad rule that screens are only allowed to rest: on press, on their racks, in the dry box, in the washout, in the dip tank, on the coating stand or on the roller master.  It has practically eliminated mesh damage along the rollers.

I've always loved to corner racking idea and storing bookshelf style for statics but not for rollers.

Sent from my intelligent phone-a-majigger.

we have been using Gorilla tape to protect mesh on our rollers. it works great and has not come off through many reclaim cycles. Note we do not use a dip tank so I can not speak to Gorilla in atank, FYI.
mooseman

[alan802]

My contribution to this thread should be placed on a new post since I unintentionally derailed it. I'll make the move later.

My real post for this thread should have been to say, how much I would like to have what Alan has in a dark room and more so, the customers that make it needed. . I like the wall mounts. That will be useful for my all area.

Zoo, I was very surprised when I put a screen in the slot.  On some of the perfectly balanced screens, they will lay perfectly flat and not need the above rack to hold the screen in place.  I'll snap a pic tomorrow with a screen on the very top rack and you'll see what I'm talking about.  But on the mesh protection thing, the part of the frame that is in contact with the wood has the polyken tape on it, it's no different than the frame sitting in a screen holder on the press.  So as long as you use some sort of protection on your frames then there will be no reason for concern.  There is so little pressure being applied to any one single point along the racks that I don't think you'd even need to screw them into the studs behind the drywall.  Even though only two sides of the 4 are touching the wood racks, the weight is so evenly distributed that I was surprised that the sides and corner not touching anything would be forcing the frame upwards in the rack.

[ZooCity]

well shucks, I'm going to try it out then.  this would be prefect for the new drying cab- I need to also fit big old diamond chase flatstock frames in there as well as the m3s so a corner rack is preferable.

I put a double layer of newman yellow tape on every screen, probably similar to the protection granted by the polyken.

thx alan, I'm tenuously excited about this.

Sent from my intelligent phone-a-majigger.