I've been working with wet plate for about 5 months or so, with a little over 100 plates under my belt. I'm pretty new at this, but I want to tell about my safelight for anyone out there getting started. If you have to be totally "period" then stop reading now. Anyway, just like everyone else, my first darkroom was a bathroom (my wife loved that). I did quite a bit of reading and research on finding a cheap alternative to a standard 120 volt safelight or having to make a box darkroom with a filter. In John Coffer's book, he mentions using a little flashlight with a red lens; in my experience this WILL fog a plate (some of you may say I held it too close, etc...). I went back to research, and found out that LED lights send light at different wavelengths. Now, in my darkroom (30 ft horse trailer) I have a LED clearance light with only 3 actual LEDs in it with a red lens. It cost me @ $7 at AutoZone. I have a light switch wired, runs on 12 volt. I have actually tried to fog a plate by holding it close to the LED light and can't do it. For those of you who already know this, sorry for wasting your time; for those who don't I hope I can save you a lot of messed up plates.

If you "REALLY" want to see what you are doing in the dark room you can use a 60 watt yellow bug light 4 feet away with no ill effects.