I know this must sound absurdly stupid, but I use a smooth bottomed stainless steel developing tray because it's easier to keep clean. My stop bath, fixer, and developing trays are all plastic and have the raised "X" which makes it wonderfully easy to pick up the wet print with tongs. Not so on my smooth bottomed stainless developing tray. Maybe I can put some foreign object on the bottom of the tray to make it easier to grasp the edge of the print with tongs. I'm worried about whatever it is I put there not being compatible with the developer. Any ideas?

-- Tony Rowlett (rowlett@alaska.net), November 29, 1999

Answers

rats. I meant to say "My stop bath, fixer, and wash trays are all plastic and have the raised "X"..." sorry.

-- Tony Rowlett (rowlett@alaska.net), November 29, 1999.

Perhaps you can turn your tray upside down (before putting the developer in it) and give it a few bumps with a hammer...

You can use plastic trays with the "new" Agfa Neutol Plus, which does not contain hydrokinon and won't stain the tray or produce any black sludge. Apparently the Plus doesn't work well with warmtone papers, gives them a bluish, cold appearance. It's for ordinary multigrade papers.

-- Peter Olsson (peter.olsson@lulebo.se), November 30, 1999.

I'd be careful about the bump (if it was meant serious at all). To be useful, such a bump would have to be rather sharp, and preferably long (like the X).

I think putting in a long glass rod diagonally might solve your problem. Glass is compatible with all darkroom stuff.

I have also read a suggestion somewhere to use glass pearls, but I would think that they are harder to clean afterwards and let you lose more chemicals.

-- Thomas Wollstein (thomas_wollstein@web.de), November 30, 1999.

Get some plastic developing trays with "X's" or raised grooves on the bottoms and put the stainless steel trays on the shelf where you can admire them. Don't worry so much about the black stains as they will not affect the quality of your work. If you insist on having really clean trays, after your printing session, put a splash of straight chlorine bleach into the developer tray and swish it around till the stain mostly disappears. Follow this with a water rinse then dump in your used fixer, let it sit for a few minutes and then wash the tray as usual. You'll thank yourself for swithcing to easier to use trays and not having to curse in the dark anymore when trying to remove a print from the developer! By the way, I've been using the same plastic developer trays for neg and print developing for more than 15 years and I bought them used. Regards, ;^D)

-- Doremus Scudder (ScudderLandreth@compuserve.com), November 30, 1999.