A local carpenter and friend just finished my darkbox. I put the shroud together. Whats the best way to mount the shroud in the box?

[i1256.photobucket.com]

[i1256.photobucket.com]

I just finished my dark box last week. I used John Coffers advice and stapled mine in starting in the center on the bottom. Pull the cloth as far forward as possible and put the first staple dead centeron the bottom. Keeping the cloth tight go to both the left and right corners and staple there. Keeping the cloth tight work your way up both sides to the top. You will find you have excess cloth at the top, make pleats evenly on each side and work your way to the center top to finish off. I then went back and stapled every inch all the way around again for extra strength. After you are done take the box outside in direct sunlight to make sure it is light tight. Fix any light you see coming thru. It is not hard to do. I used 5/16 inch staples. Good luck. Hope this helped
RJ

Thanks!!!!!


I

What are you guys using for light proof fabric?

I use two layers. Black cotton on the outside and yellow on the inside. Nothing special I just go to the fabric store and hold the fabric tightly over my eyes and look up at the florescent lights. The fabric that shows the least amount of light through it is what I get.

Your legs look very scarry to me! They will never hold up in any kind of wind. Use a much wider base or a tripod. Ive had the darkroom go over and its not something you want to have happen.

I broke down and bought the ripstop material with the light proof coating from Freestyle Photo. It is light weight and totally light tight. It was expensive, but I did not have to do two layers. So far it works really well. If you want a more 1800's look, this would not be what you want....
Good luck.
RJ

Nice boox, too bad it is unstable. Like bob said , get a wide base or tripod, or like I do, just set up a couple of saw horses and put it on that.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/22/2012 05:38PM by profkleindorf.

RobertSzabo Wrote:
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> Your legs look very scarry to me! They will never
> hold up in any kind of wind. Use a much wider
> base or a tripod. Ive had the darkroom go over and
> its not something you want to have happen.


Kinda' like Will's seats at Yosemite.

Thanks for the advice. Will find an alternate support system. Hope to see Bob's National Geographic pics soon!! I enjoyed the other ones on your site very much!!!

I

Thanks for the advice on the dark cloth

In addition to the staples all the way round, I used black duct tape to "seal" the staples as I was worried they might loosen over time. It's not pretty but very functional. As for cloth, I used a black velvet and another black thin cloth (polyester I think) together since neither was totally light proof. It cost around $70 for both so I think it would have been just as good to have bought proper darkroom cloth.

I screwed down a thin strip of edge molding over my staples to make sure the fabric didn't pull thru/tear... Worked great!

i used a material at joans fabric that was a light weight vinyl. its black on the finished side and white on the unfinished side. its not rubber cloth but it repels water so you dont have to worry about silver and other chems soaking in. its also nice because it holds up to a sewing machine well. it also comes in wide peices. i then just bought black broad cloth and tacked it to the outside. along the seams i put a strip of heavy dudy gaffers tape and its all set to to go.

ps sign up for joans news letter and get 50 percent off coupons.