Does anyone know how to build a lightbox ? Materials, instructions, etc.? I'd like to make one thats portable and about 18" x 24". Thanks. Gary

-- Gary Carter (garylcarter@earthlink.net), February 05, 1998

Answers

re:Building a Lightbox

Gary,

I found an interesting site on the internet that gives you directions on how to build a lot of darkroom equipment. Go to the following:

www.open.org/hughesa/w3-01.htm

I used his instructions on how to build a print washer and it turned out very nice. He has plans on how to build a lightbox also. I plan to use this too.

Kevin

-- Kevin B. Finigan (kfinigan@swbell.net), February 05, 1998.

The site mentioned in the previous reply looks good.

I built a lightbox in a similar way, but simpler and with more light. To get a fairly even spread of light, you either have to have a very deep box, or lots of bulbs. I wanted a shallow box, with a glass about 14x20 inches, so I used 6 fluorescent bulbs. These use 12V at 4A in total, and the power supply, being rather large and heavy, is external. I drilled a series of holes for ventilation.

There is no lid. The base is medium density fibreboard, the sides are timber, butt-joined with a rebate for the glass. The glass is actually opal plastic; not cheap, but very nice. Because no mains power goes into the box, it is reasonably safe.

However, the total cost was about the same as commercial units, about 100 pounds. The commercial units have a blueer light than mine (closer to daylight) which doesn't really matter, and are dimmer, and some have an uneven light spread.

Apart from using it to examine negatives, I use it as a pure-white shadowless background for photographng small objects.

-- Alan Gibson (gibson.al@mail.dec.com), February 06, 1998.