MAJOR PROGRESS!

It's one step away from being my first functionally perfect darkroom.

Now, I'm not at home and haven't got access to a camera to summarise the progress, but basically here goes:

The inside is painted and finished. White oil paint on everything, which makes it liquid-tight for any spills.

The outside has been painted matt black. It's in an out-of-the-way corner of a spare room, and painting it black makes it stand out less than if it were white.

The black light-tight cloth that wraps around the doors, ceiling and floor of the cupboard has been bought and installed, and now when the doors open it unfolds with them, and standing in front of it it looks like peering into the ground-glass bit of a TLR - dark sides, and one front opening. Now I just need to make the cloth door thing for the front, which uses a zip and velcro to block out the light when the door is closed. More photos soon.

I am really excited! It's so nice. The drying cabinet has seen heavy use, even with a makeshift 'hook' to attach the films to that bends up the bellows of the air vent to grip on without piercing the paint for moisture proofing. The only issue is that 35mm 36exp films have barely any free space below them, something I would redesign if I ever built this again. However, since I normally use 120 film, it's not an issue unless I'm developing friends' film.

yeah!

And I've also been dabbling with colour developing, both C-41 and E6. I use a cheap-as-possible stainless tank from freestyle plus the cheapest stainless reels. I use glass bottles to hold the chemicals, store them in an old barfridge when I'm not using them with a layer of argon gas to minimise oxidation.  I get the temperature to 100F +/- 0.5F with the use of an old kettle, a Paterson colour thermometer and an eski about a foot deep with the water. I make the water about 115F, and then wait for it to cool to the right temp before starting, which easily lets me load the film into the tank with a (for now) dark bag. I use this heating water for rinses, and since I haven't got a sink, let alone a hot water tap, I pour the rinse waste into a bucket which is then used to water the weeds. They don't seem to be effected, though; so the diluted rinsewater musn't be too bad chemically.
I've done about 8 batches of two-120-rolls each bach, and each one has worked very well.

A photo update

This is the baffle being inserted with the gentle persuasion of a steel mallet.
I tapped it through an off-cut of MDF so that there wouldn't be any dents.

If I ever drop anything into the drying cabinet, I'm going to need to get it out again.
My hands can't fit in those holes:

But they can fit in this one.

The tape was originally to make sure that only the desk was painted in waterproof enamel oil paint, but I thought 'let's paint the whole thing again!' so it was removed and everywhere is now waterproof.

I also found some lightproof cloth that is very thin and extremely opaque! And only $7 a meter!
I bought 0.5 meters of it to test before buying the 11m or so I need. Now we turn into a stitching blog!

and now!

It's been several weeks since my last update. However, there has been considerable progress in that time.

First off, the essential painting is done. DONE! The inside is now completely smothered in an oil-based enamel that is so water resistant spills just bead up on its surface. After fretting about the sponge-like qualities of MDF and water, this is an absolute joy. for me, at least.
Later on, I might get some more paint and work on the inside of it. For now though, there are other priorities.

The biggest of those is to get the darkroom dark. This is accomplished by a lightproof cloth/material draped about the entrance. It'd be easier to explain with photos, however my camera is somewhere else and I can't be bothered to get it and take snapshots that embarras my photographic ego in terms of their horrendousness.
Every cloth I've tested so far (by putting the flashlight of by iphone on one side of the fabric and looking through) has had pinholes of light coming through, which in unacceptable, especially when compared with the impeccable opacity of my changing bag. Which I hate. An idea I've had is to get some black plastic from a gardening shop and use that. It should work quite well, however rips could be an issue.

Back soon. I've ordered colour film developing chemicals and equipment, too.

Undercoating almost complete

And so the most frustrating part of the project continues. Painting.

When I first had the 'dry fit', putting the modules together to see if they fit, they did. Oh, they fit well - to within a fraction of a millimetre.
I then needed to undercoat the thing, and I decided to do it in modules (i.e. disassembled) so I could get at the more fiddly areas. Well, that was a mistake.
When I tried to reassemble it, it didn't fit as well as I would have liked. I had to sand and scrape away layers of paint and MDF to get some things in, like this

It worked in the end, but I should have just assembled it fully, and then painted it.

Anyway, other things were happening too, such as preparing to drill the air-out vent hole

Old cheap russian gas mask + HEPA filter = win

This is one of the two fans I'm going to use.

And the door! It works!

This is part of the baffle for the air-out vent

With the air-out vent (last two photos) the bit on the table is put in the thing above the door (the drying cabinet, where film hangs up to dry in the airstream). However, paint has made it a tight fit, meaning that it's almost certainly a one-installation job, with no ability to remove and fix it. That means that I'm going to need to undercoat it, and then paint it black where it is now, then install it.

Also, I haven't got a photo of it, but the air in module has an issue: It's stuck. I undercoated it and screwed it in place, however the undercoat is a bit sticky. Thus, its stuck and wont come down, which means I'm going to have to deal with two issues: 1. Painting the inside black to minimise reflections of light; and 2. Putting the fan inside it.

For 1: Solved. Because it has airflow through it, and because its undercoated, I can just spray black spraypaint through it, and the whole thing should end up black on the inside.

For 2: Solved. Instead of having the fan on the inside, it's going to be mounted on the outside, with the air HEPA filter on top of the fan - it's a fan sandwich. I've played around with them, and it will work. It might look a bit odd, though; but I'll paint it black on the outside so it looks less conspicuous. I'm actually thinking of painting the whole thing black on it's outside, so it looks a bit more subtle. If possible. It's not exactly going to look pretty on the outside, I've recently realised (especially when the dark cloth thing folds up as the door closes), so why not go with the flow?

More to come soon. It's going to be complete within several weeks.

Painting

After the dry-fit, I needed to disassemble the modules in order to paint them.

It's pretty slow, and I'm strongly regretting using a brush. Now I have somewhat annoying brushstrokes on the desk; but it's unlikely that the desk will be often clean enough to 'appreciate' it. 

This is the air-in module. It's attached to the top corner of the darkroom so that three walls come up against it and provide a light-tight seal. The panel things are so that air can get through, but light cant. It's currently smothered in undercoat.

This is at the base of the drying cabinet, taken from what will become the inside. There's going to be an air filter of the size of the box on the other side, and the holes were drilled to let this filtered air through; sucked up by the air-out module.

Poirot and the mystery of the brushstroked desk? 

Here, we have the first door attached and working! It was so easy, simply lining up the hinge and screwing it in while on the floor. 

The door working with the negative shadow (?) of the light coming through the air-out vent hole

Progress

Now the left under-desk thing is done too:

Here it is with the top on. The top is made from two pieces of MDF, so that there'd be a hole for the film to hang through in the drying cabinet.

Designing the drying cabinet (and making sure it fit) was one of the more difficult things about this build, and would have almost been impossible without being able to design it with a computer.
The black rectangle down the bottom is where holes and a HEPA air filter are going, so filtered dust-free airflow can travel up the cabinet to dry the films faster. Conveniently, this is also works as an air-circulation thing for the darkroom in general; with another HEPA filter over a fan for air intake in the top right corner of the shell, and this as the air outlet, which is then sucked out by another fan at the top of the cabinet.

Here I'm working out the ideal shelf heights. I'm planning to store chemicals in used wine bottles such as this, and since the height of the shelves is not critical in regards to the computer design and MDF boards, I'm adjusting it for this.

The set up as it currently stands

Contruction begins

The first thing I did was to build the 'outer shell' of the cupboard. It's the heaviest section, taking all of the huge, heavy panels (expect the doors at this stage). That was pretty easy.
If I ever need to disassemble the darkroom, this shell is not coming apart. Glued, and then predrilled-and-screwed it's very solid.

After a while, I made a second section: the shelf thing under the desk on the right hand side. Perhaps one day I'll make it into the drawer unit it was designed to be; but I thought having drawers wasn't essential at this point. Here, I've thrown the bench panel on top just for fun, and put both in the shell:

ITS LOOKING SOO GOOOD!

At this point, I'm starting to realise that it actually might work out.