Brush Hanger for a Dark Room
Necessity may be the mother of invention, but it is also the grandmother of application, and application is the practical side of invention. Both the amateur and the professional photographer have been bothered by spotting and unequal development of negatives and prints in tray development, due to various causes, and sometimes by the presence of dirt particles or the unequal or incomplete flowing of the developer over the surface of the sensitive emulsion.
Most professionals and many amateurs are familiar with the use of the camel's-hair brush to avoid failures of this character, and many of them use a brush for local development in certain cases where it is necessary or desirable. Usually the brush is kept in a small glass cup, somewhere close at hand, but it is often in the way when not wanted and misplaced when most needed. The brush can be kept within reach and handy for the operator by arranging a light counterweight and pulley with a string attached to the brush, so that, normally, the brush will hang from the ceiling directly over the developing tray and can be obtained for use when desired.
The detail of this brush-string and counterweight combination was deliberately appropriated from the old plan of suspending the piece of chalk over a billiard table, so that the players could easily reach it, when needed, while, when released, it would be pulled out of the way by the counterweight. The developing brush thus suspended is always ready, never misplaced, nor in the way for other operations. This arrangement is particularly convenient where a bathroom is used as a dark room, and the shelf space is limited.
This same manner of counterweighting chalk on the billiard table may be applied to a stove-lid lifter, to keep it within easy reach and always cool enough to handle. The simplest and most inexpensive way of making this apparatus is to cut off a small piece of lead pipe for a counterweight, and, in the absence of a suitable pulley, use an ordinary screweye fastened in the ceiling. The latter is really better than a pulley because the string cannot run off the screweye. The arrangement is better understood by referring to the sketch.
Lighting a Basement Light
There was no switch at the basement door and it was difficult to find the droplight in the dark. Instead of going to the expense of placing a switch, the contrivance illustrated and described was rigged up and proved equal to the requirements.
A 7/8-in. piece of wood was cut about 6 in. long by 2 in. wide and a recess made at one end for the socket, as shown. A 1/8-in. hole was drilled in the center, about 2 in. from one end, and another, large enough to receive the projection from a pull socket, about 2 in. from the other end, or the end to be used as the bottom of the block. A clamp made of spring brass, as shown, was screwed securely to the board, to clamp the socket firmly. A wire was passed through the small hole and stretched across the room from the door at a height to bring the light about 6 ft. from the floor. Then the socket was clamped to the strip with the chain passed through the hole cut for it. The cord attached to the chain was run to the door casing, passed through a screweye and weighted with a nut or some light object, to keep it taut. To light the lamp or put it out only a pull on the string was necessary.
