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using old trays

NewMexican

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Jun 25, 2005
Messages
44
Location
Lincoln Coun
Format
Medium Format
Old developing trays
I have been using the same trays for 30 years.They are stained almost black but they are always cleaned after use. BTW I have used 11x41 kitty litter trays for nearly 40 years but they aren't as silvered up as the cescos. Are there others out there as unconcerned as I am or is there something I am missing?
charlie
 
Keep using them, there is a long time beauty involved with these old trays.
 
I don't clean my trays. I have been using my Patterson 8x10 for over 20 years. My developer tray has a fine silver patina that I love. Why clean it? I don't plan to eat off of them.
 
I have been using the same trays for 42 years as well. Each is labeled so the same type of chemistry (ie fix) is always used in the tray as indicated. I don't clean them but thoroughly rinse and dry them after each use. I have grown older along with them and we both still work too.

http://www.jeffreyglasser.com/
 
As long as they are not injuring the emulsion on your prints or film, I believe the politically correct term to be "seasoned".
 
Seasoned would be a good term for it and I'm not politically correct. Like an iron skillet that is grungy and clean at the same time, it has to be seasoned to be a good skillet.
 
John Cyr photographed a large collection of developer trays from many of the greats of photography. Its worth a look if you are interested in things like this, I thought it was very cool.

Dead Link Removed
 
Thats very cool to see. I wonder how people used/use trays with out any ridges or valleys in them to be able to pick up the film?
 
cjbecker said:
Thats very cool to see. I wonder how people used/use trays with out any ridges or valleys in them to be able to pick up the film?
Click to expand...

My wash tray has a flat bottom, and I use a half of a broken set of tongs in the bottom. Prints sticking to the bottom WAS actually an issue the first time I used the tray. All my trays have a pleasant tone to them.
 
Flat bottomed trays are not too bad to use. Where i work I use a set of yellow kodak duraflex? trays routinely. They are in great condition, sometimes prints stick to the bottom but it's not hard to unstick them with tongs or move them by agitating the tray by picking up a corner. Though at home my trays have ridges.
 
I am still using the same 8x10 Patterson developing tray that I first bought when starting photography a couple decades ago. I occasionally wipe it out with a paper towel when I notice the corners of my prints getting black from the silver in the tray.
 


When I first started developing 4x5 I used the hard almost fiberglass trays, not sure what they are, but I quit developing 4x5 until I got a set of paterson trays. Paper developing is fine in the flat bottom trays but negs were impossible for me.
 
I use flat-bottom stainless steel 11x14 and 16x20 developing trays. I always try to keep the emulsion side of the print from touching the bottom of the tray. I clean trays constantly, and when I cannot remove silver deposits from a developing tray, I simply get rid of the tray. I like the plastic-grooved paterson trays as well, and when they darken from silver precip that cannot be cleaned, the trays are tossed. In the darkroom, using any b&w developer chemistry with any of the great current silver-rich papers, you will eventually get stained developer trays, either using dektol, or any other paper developer, at any dilution. The big problem with tray stains is that the stains possibly can re-dissolve their silver chemical residue back into the fresh tray developer.
 
My 11 X 14 stainless steel trays, which I think are US military surplus, don't have ridges; it doesn't seem to matter. They're also the only trays I have which clean up well and don't look grungy, not that that matters either.
 
11x14 trays

There seems to be a wide range of opinion about what is clean. My 11x14 trays are Kitty litter trays that have a kitty face embossed on the bottom which keeps prints from sticking. They aren't silvered up.
 
Newt_on_Swings said:
John Cyr photographed a large collection of developer trays from many of the greats of photography. Its worth a look if you are interested in things like this, I thought it was very cool.

Dead Link Removed
Click to expand...


Interesting trays . . . does that mean I/we are tray geeks?!

I thought the text was strange though. Regarding printing, the text says " . . . the majority of it was performed in black and white darkrooms until the mid-1970's . . . ". Really? So what did we change in 1976 or so? He also states that darkrooms were used for photography courses " . . . As recently as 2000 . . . ", they still are (eg. for my nephew at RCA in London). This artist's statement is a load of inaccurate drivel that is going to mis-inform countless people, if they ever feel the urge to Google for anything related to silver printing. Even more worryingly, the author states that he is a lecturer at the "International Center of Photography" and "Adelphi University". Just this once, I'm relieved that I'm not thirty-five years younger, having that guy as a teacher.
 
With apologies to Freddie Mercury, I hear a song coming on:
"Flat-bottomed trays, you make the darkroom world go 'round!"
 
Seasoned is the word. I have some hard rubber trays my Dad had in college (early 1930's) I use them when I do Minox prints as they're 4X5. Flat bottom, but seem to work well.
 
Yea that artists statement is odd... Esp if he works at ICP which has an operating darkroom... I kind of skimmed that section an only took a look at his bio briefly.
 
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