Is there perhaps any one out there who can say that you have found a way that significantly has decreased the amount of dust in your darkroom?

If so, what's your method, never wear cotton or wool clothes, keep a bucket of water standing in the room always, swab everything with a wet cloth every time/every week/every month, ...???

Except for removing dust every time, what's your method to consistently having a lower amount of dust to begin with?

Thanks for sharing, Peter

-- Peter Olsson (Peter.Olsson@sb.luth.se), February 05, 1999

Answers

I live in Oklahoma so I'm an expert on dust. I got that dust pneumony in my lungs. I have tried de-ionizers, humidifiers, pulonium brushes just about every gimmick on the market for air-treatment/conditioning to solve my dust problems. The only thing that I've found works is keeping your darkroom clean. Keep all glass in cases sealed away from the dusty air, cover your enlarger with a trash bag, even try to seal off your darkroom windows and learn how to become a great dust spotter. No matter how spotless a darkroom is in Oklahoma you will still see dust on your prints. It is truly frustrating but unavoidable. Sometimes in the spring, I give up on keeping the darkroom clean and just concentrate on keeping it off my negs, I use canned air and a brush. That's it you don't need anything else. Is the darkroom inside your house? If you have central heat and air or any kind of forced air vent in your darkroom, shut it. Keep the darkroom door closed try to create a "clean room". Good Luck I certainly sympathize with your problem. P.s. A cheap humdifier might help if you live in a very dry climate.

-- BB (linhof6@hotmail.com), February 05, 1999.

I don't have much to add except to concur with you and the previous poster.

My darkroom is a 6' X 6' X 6' cedar closet installed by the house's previous owner. It is near the furnace room in the basement but is off central air. I garbage bag the enlarger and mop the walls and floor before each session. Then I fill a 2.5 gallon bucket with hot (140 deg F.) water and tuck it in one corner away from metal objects that the steam might condense on. I have thought about using a vaporizer - the kind used by asthma sufferers and people with chest colds - they seem cheaper and more output than humidifiers and can be found at yard sales. The current system works well in the winter when my humidity is low.

I contact print 8 X 10 so I've got 4 sides to clean each time I put a new sheet of paper in. I brush the negative, slowly, both sides, and wipe off the glass, slowly, with an anti-staticum cloth from Ilford or who ever. I've always wondered about the effectiveness of the massively expensive Zone VI electro-static dust brush.

I don't know if they are available anymore or not, but back in the old days of LP's, there was a dust-gun device that stereo-philes would use. I don't know how it worked exactly, but supposedly it created an ionic charge on the LP that would actually repel dust for a while. I've been looking for one to show up used so I could try it out.

GOOD LUCK!

-- Sean yates (yatescats@yahoo.com), February 05, 1999.

Dust, (that rotten subject)

About 15 yrs. ago, in one of the photo mags., someone asked the same question and the answer was: blow up balloons, seal them, attach them to the darkroom walls with thumb tacks and THEN clean your darkroom completely. If you rub the balloons with nylon, rayon or another cloth, they will attract pounds of dust. That isn't to say you'll get rid of the dust but look at all the satisfaction you'll get from the effort. I tried it and it help immensely but didn't cure my Las Vegas dust problem. I sympathize with the gent in Oklahoma.

-- H. David Huffman (craptalk@ix.netcom.com), May 12, 1999.

I also live in the dusty mid-west but i like a different philosophy, if you leave the dust alone it will leave you alone. I always handle negatives with anti-static gloves, wipe the diffusor in the enlarger with an anti-static glove before using and use a good anti-static brush and compressed air on the negative in the negative holder. I think constant cleaning just stirs up dust that probably takes days to settle down. 2 or 3 times a year my darkroom gets a thorough cleaning.

-- Jeff White (zonie@computer-concepts.com), February 05, 1999.

I think that one thing to do is to try to reduce the amount of dust entering the room from outside, I like positive ventilation for that, but I also have an exhaust fan BELOW my sink, next to the refrigerator coils (they tend to accumulate the dust, and I can wipe them off on occasion)

Also humidity seems to affect the amount of dust "floating" in the air, if you have warm water in a tray in your sink, youll increase the humidity and cause the dust to drop to the floor faster.

Use an antistatic brush every so often on your negative carrier.

Hope this helps,
Andy

-- Andy Hughes (andy@darkroomsource.com), February 05, 1999.

There's a ventilation issue here as well. I have a kitchen exhaust fan sucking air on the wall above the sink. Behind me, low in the opposit wall, there's a ventilation panel containing a furnace filter. It's baffled with two attic vents (painted black) of the kind usually seen up under the eves of the roof. Chemical laden air gets pulled away from me and blown out, it's replaced with air pulled out of the basement and through the furnace filter. I don't run the fan for film processing. My final rinse is Sprint's "End Run" made with distilled water. Once the film is hung up and wiped, I tip toe out of the room and don't go back for hours. Negs are pristine. When printing, I have a bright little 6V light near the enlarger. Negs are brushed or blown clean before printing. I don't do a lot of cleaning or wiping of the darkroom, because dust doesn't seem to be a problem.

-- Phil Stiles (pjs@worldpath.net), February 07, 1999.