Hello everyone. I am setting a new darkroom and remember seeing an ad for lightproof cloth for darkroom windows. Does anyone know where to get it? Any other ideas to darken a room and still be able to open the windows would be greatly appreciated. Thanking you in advance for your valuable feedback: Marcel

-- Marcel Perez-Calisto (light@gate.net), April 23, 2000

Answers

Once I used flat black exterior paint on both sides of the glass and then hung the large thick plastic bags on the inside, worked very well. The other that worked very well was to get a black material the size of the window or larger and then put black felt on top of that, it helps if you have a wife who sews, these both worked very well for me. Pat

-- pat j. krentz (krentz@cci-29palms.com), April 23, 2000.

See my recent thread on Photo.net. I got lots of good responses. Bill

-- Bill Mitchell (bmitch@home.com), April 24, 2000.

Porter's (www.porters.com) carries several types of light proof material.

You can also get light proof curtain liner material at fabric stores.

-- Terry Carraway (TCarraway@compuserve.com), April 24, 2000.

When I sought something like that for my bathroom window, I was offered the stuff used in x-ray labs. But you know the prices for medical products ... So I tried this (with sucess): I went to a store that sells bulkware cloth and sought out the cheapest black material they had. I put this over my strongest flash and kept adding further layers until I could see the flash no more. Then I added a further layer, calculated how many metres I needed. That was much cheaper than any ready-made solution. So I bought it, sewed the layers together at home, and had (and still have) an affordable solution. It may be bit heavier than one layer of special light-tight tissue, but that doesn't disturb me.

-- Thomas Wollstein (thomas_wollstein@web.de), April 25, 2000.

Avery effective and affordable solution is full blockout curtain lining. it is available up to 240 cms wide and is very east to work with.

-- Steve Nicholls (gl1500@chariot.net.au), April 25, 2000.

My darkroom is a small office and adjoining bathroom with a total of 3 windows and a door. Since it is used for other purposes, my window treatment has to be completely reversable and quick to install and remove. I found some plastic corregated sheets at TAP plastics (like sheets of cardboard but made from plastic) which I cut to exactly fit over the windows fitting tightly within the inside edge of the window frame. I covered these with "blackout" plastic available in rolls from photo stores. I then obtained some densely woven black cloth at a fabric store which I cut to hang over the outside edge of the window frame. I sewed small rings into the top edge of the fabric, which I hang on little eye hooks set at the top of the outside edge of the window frame. The combination of the plastic sheets and hanging cloth is completely light tight, can be set up or taken down in about 30 seconds for all three windows, and is stowed easily when not in use.

-- Chris Patti (cmpatti@aol.com), April 25, 2000.