What kind? B&W or color print or negative?

It been years since I've done anything, and the entire photo world has changed - items that were cheaper may now be more expensive, things ubiquitous now rare, easier tasks may now be harder, but let me ramble a few thoughts.

Practice threading a roll of cheap unexposed film into your reel before trying to load it up with a roll containing pictures. Practice in normal room lighting (yes, the film will be useless afterward), then in complete darkness, and 'simulate' problems - film going cock-eyed, jamming, etc. - until you are comfortable you can deal when shit hits fan (and it will). The wrong time to learn how to deal with problems is with exposed film containing priceless images, and in total darkness.

Don't know about how it is these days, but when I was a kid the local pharmacist would put aside dark brown glass bottles for me. They need to be cleaned thoroughly, but make excellent chemical storage bottles, and cost only your time.

Follow the developer's time/temp recommendations. There are games you can play (push processing, etc.), but get a feel for going "by the book" first. You might consider keeping spent developer, and extracting the silver when you get enough.

Wear suitable gloves when working with glacial acetic acid, and mixing up your stop bath.

Agitate well so the development process stops uniformly.

Don't skimp on fixing time, or continue using fixer solution once it gets weak.

Rule of thumb for washing (with water, after fixing) is to use 5 to 7 times the volume of the fixer solution. Try to keep the wash water temperature reasonably close to that of your other chemicals. Washing with colder water requires more time and volume (chemical reactions are slower at lower temps); hotter at first sounds like a good idea, but can cause both print and film quality problems.

Skimping on fixing, and/or washing will bite you years later (loss of contrast, or even browning/fogging).

Get a decent darkroom timer. Just about where I left off digital timers were starting to come into their own, but, if I was going to put my darkroom back together I'd probably still use a motor-driven one like my Gralab (model 300?).

I've never owned a great enlarger. I started out making contact prints, then got this incredibly ugly Sears 'toy' enlarger for (Christmas?, a birthday?), but it worked well enough once getting past it's limitations. A year or so later bought a lower end Durst, and ran that for a couple of years. It used a plastic housing in the height adjustment mechanism - when a wee little tab in it broke (parts were no longer available), and I got sick of using a Vise-Grip to hold the lens head in position gave up darkroom work.

I'd guess decent used Bogen, Durst, and Omega enlargers are out there to be had at reasonable prices. Don't know what new ones cost, but it'll be one of the more expensive items.

Get a decent easel. I made mine, but getting repeatable registration was a bit tricky.

"Photoshopping" tools are way more physical - pieces of flat black painted matte board with holes and other shapes of various sizes for "burning in", and a thin rod (heavier coat-hanger wire works fine) with pieces of cardboard stuck on the end for "dodging". It takes a bit of experimentation to get the skills, but with these simple implements you can selectively change print density in certain areas.

Don't rush. Nothing like leaving a nearly full pack of print paper out (instead of returning it to a "dark box") then turning on the lights to ruin your day, not to mention your pocketbook.

Good luck - darkroom work is (usually) fun, and, in my twisted opinion, provides a greater sense of accomplishment than banging out digital frames, and pushing them through software.

I want a turban. I suppose there are places online that would tell me how to properly make one.

Relatively so, yeah.

Most of what I did was using Kodak Tri-X 400, and later, Ilford film in 400 and 800. I shot a couple of rolls of faster stuff (I think Kodak came out with TMax (or perhaps a predecessor to it) about the time I stopped - call it 1982 - it might have been 1200 ASA, but for what I was doing 800 was plenty fast.

When pushing I had good results using a two step D76 developer ... looked around, and saw a couple of discussions about 'divided D76', and its pretty much how I remember it. You might give it a whirl. As far as development times go .... when getting a feel for a particular film/developer combo I'd get and shoot a couple of rolls of 135-12 on the same scenes, then (and record keeping is key here) develop them a couple of different ways (varying dev times, etc.) and see what outcomes I liked more.

Wish I could say more, but I've never even seen a roll of 3600 - out of the loop for too long

Why the need for speed? Low ambient lighting and/or action photography?

Thanks. Today I still can't stretch out my right shoulder to full extension, and it feels "tight", but at least the eyeball-explulsing pain has subsided.

Guess that qualifies as both low ambient lighting and action photography

Eastman Kodak used to have an excellent series of reference books (and other companies - Ilford, Agfa, etc. did too) . Couldn't find the particular handbook I was thinking about on their website (a complete formulary of their products, including how to mix them from raw chemicals, development time guides ... the whole enchilada), so suspect it is no longer in print. My copy isn't immediately locatable - although this gives me yet another good reason to clean out my basement.

Kodak does have a decent range of free-to-download PDFs guides (index), and instructions/tips for their currently available photo chemicals such as D-76 developer.

Took a look on Amazon, and saw several books worth checking out.

The Film Developing Cookbook (and it's companion volume, "The Darkroom Cookbook, Second Edition") get good reviews.

I also highly recommend reading Ansel Adam's "The Negative". It is heavily technical (and somewhat dated), but so well written it remains accessible for enthusiasts at all skill levels, and remember learning a lot from it.