[LargeFormat] Re: [Large Format] Air Compressor in the darkroom? (was Removing black spots from prints)

[Vincent Dobson]

Alan,

For my day job, I own a construction Co. and my office is right off my
darkroom (great place to hide)  I have a large air compressor and my
warehouse piped as we use it for various reasons including a painting spray
booth.

But you of course don't need that. - If I was setting up a new darkroom away
from here I would chose from two ways.

1.  A small twenty gallon air compressor, oil trap, filter, piped in
schedule 40 pvc to my points needed - darkroom for enlarger area, film
loading and perhaps in the print framing room (if needed)

But if you are just talking about needing it for holder loading I would just
get one of those 7 gallon flat tire tanks.  They come with a short section
of hose.  Replace the tire pump nipple with a air gun.  Simply have one of
those very cheap emergency flat tire pumps they sell to keep in your car
that work off a cigarette lighter - even if you have to use your car
cigarette lighter socket to fill it, no big deal because if you keep the
valve on the tank set at a very small trickle you ***SWOOSH*** get a blast
just as you slide the darkslide close.  You can use it when you load a lot
of holders because you use only the amount of compressed air that your hose
contains (volume can be varied by hose length) for each holder.  The next
load will trickle in to full tank pressure as you prepare to load the next
holder.  One nice offshoot of this method also is you don't really need the
oil separator or filter as you will need with the larger compressor.

One more suggestion:

If you were to be using a bathroom as a part time film loading room, run the
shower full hot for a bit - the steam drops all of the dust from the air.

Since I built my darkroom and no longer load in the bathroom I have both a
Ionized air filter thing but (I like better) -- A rainbow vacuum cleaner (it
draws the incoming air through water.  I fill it up with water and leave it
running in the darkroom for 1 to 4 hours (according to room size) before
loading.  One sales method the rainbow VAC salesmen used was to run the
vacuum in a dark room and shine a light to show dust flaked air going in but
no dust coming out.  They compared this with the customers VAC that showed a
fog of dust exiting from that VACS bag or whatever --- hooked them every
time - I know (ask my Ex-wife)

Your cheapest (and perhaps best) route will be the cigarette lighter pump
and 7 gallon portable flat tank.  In '00 my brother and I flew to Oregon,
rented a camper for 2 weeks.  After a quick stop at a auto supply store my
brother would tape me up in the bathroom and **Swoosh** **Swoosh** I
couldn't come out until the next day's holders were loaded.  When we left we
donated the $29.00 tank as a tip to the RV rental guy and threw the little
pump in the luggage.

Vince Dobson
Visions In Nature
www.VisionsInNature.com

:>-----Original Message-----
:>From: largeformat-admin@f32.net [mailto:largeformat-admin@f32.net]On
:>Behalf Of Alan Bucknam
:>Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 2003 7:04 PM
:>To: largeformat@f32.net
:>Subject: [LargeFormat] Re: [Large Format] Air Compressor in the
:>darkroom? (was Removing black spots from prints)
:>
:>
:>Vince,
:>
:>I'm finishing up my darkroom at the moment, and have been considering a
:>compressor installation like yours. Any specifics on your setup would
:>be greatly appreciated (where do you hide the compressor to minimize
:>noise? how large a compressor do you use? Do you use a hard pipe from
:>the compressor to the ceiling mount, or is it all flex hose? etc.
:>etc....)
:>
:>thanks,
:>
:>Alan bucknam
:>