Enlarger Filter stacking question

Hello all,
I am grabbing a set of arista color filters for my Omega D enlarger. I am going to 3d print a a box for each color that will have pull-out slots for each of the 7 filters, but it occurred to me that I could make square frames to mount the filters (like how Ilford's below the lens contrast filters have plastic mounts) and make them easier to handle. The question I have, is would there be any issue with having an air gap of 1mm or 2mm per filter as they sit in the condenser box? In my experience, I haven't ever had to use so many color filters that I would worry about running out of room in the filter area, so the only wonder is if that spacing would be of concern.

jrhii said:

would there be any issue with having an air gap of 1mm or 2mm per filter as they sit in the condenser box?

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No. It's all above the negative, so it's only impacting the amount of light getting through. I don't see why it would be any different from having then just on top of each other.
I haven't don't much enlarging of colour large format, but I doubt you would really ever need more than 6 (maybe never even that many) filters (I imagine 4 is the normal maximum) -- unless you have a much more refined set of filters than I have.

Shouldn’t be an issue. I had 3D printed filter holders for my Beseler 45MXT that were a few mm thick before I moved away from the condenser head. Sometimes I’d stack a Multigrade filter and a neutral density gel with a small air gap like you’ve described, and I never had a problem.

Thanks, that's what I was figuring. Yeah, 4-6 is probably about right with these filters, in my experience with the same brand of filters on a smaller enlarger. Pretty much any filter number I've practicably used required 3 filters max (per yellow and magenta setting).

As others said, many enlargers with filter drawers, were actually like a drawer, and the filters are stacked on top of each other in the drawer. I'm not aware of any that had slots, though I don't see anything wrong with that approach.

Show a picture when you are done.

Will do. Maybe I should get around to uploading the print files, as well. I have a backlog of useful things I have made, but not uploaded for this, included a replacement filter slot and negative carriers I was missing

Update: here is my new filter organizer setup. Should work perfectly.

The question is, is this for variable grade black and white printing? Because there’s no reason to have more than one color filter used at a time. You might want to add an ND filter or two, but otherwise one filter is all you need in the enlarger.

This is for RA-4 printing. I have Ilford filters and I just use my normal filter tray with those, but I wanted to try something more convenient for this process, since I don't have the luxury of a dichroic enlarged.

theres a vivitar? enlarger on ebay right now, its a cute little thing, but its a color enlarger, and it has a stack of i believe 10 slots for filters to be in for controlling the light source.

in the photos it looks like there is a gap between each filter equal to the thickness of the filter. holder.