On 19/09/2015 16:54, Chris French wrote:
Eldest daughter (14) is very much getting into photography. Digital of
course, but she likes the idea of having a play with film.

Someone on the local Freecycle was offering a load of darkroom gear,
which I've acquired. And I've rooted out my old film SLR. So now need to
construct some sort of darkroom space.

Never had one myself, though did do a little bit a few times with a
friend many moons ago. But' I'm pretty sure plenty of folks here have
done such things in the past.

So any pointers/suggestions for setting it up are welcome. something at
least semi permanent would be preferable I think, and we have a few
places that might be suitable. What is the essentials, what would be nice.

don't want to spend to much money as it might be a bit of a flash in the
pan.

One possibility is the cellar - a bit damp, but ok plenty of space,- has
power, but no water or drainage. There a few different spaces down there
and only one small window in a light well that doesn't really do
anything much except provide a little ventilation, so making it dark
would be easy.

Another thought is that we have a dressing room that isn't really
properly used. We I could use one end of that. It has two entrances, so
I could partition one end off with black plastic say - no window at that
end (power, accessible drainage and water. We do have plans to create an
en suite bathroom, and a separate storage room with a a partition wall
across dividing the room, so could potentially do the partition wall now
anyway.

Thanks.

Be aware that some of the chemicals are quite harsh and some (like me)
develop rashes from them.

I used to put a board on the bath and black out the room with blackout
cloth.

I would buy her a couple of rolls of film and have them processed
somewhere so she can see how much harder it is than using digital before
investing much.

If she likes it then you need a film tank and probably a
thermostatically controlled bath if you go colour film.

Then you will need an enlarger, masking frame, dishes, timer, tongs,
safe light for B&W.

For colour you really want an enlarger with dichroic filters. You can
get away with gelatin filters but its a real pain swapping them and they
do wear out.

Colour is much more critical of temperature control so you probably need
a tank and water bath but I have done it with just a print tank you roll
along the bench.

Its quite hard to actually find the stuff these days, google is pretty
useless from what I have seen.