Deluxe Flat Bottom Darkroom Tray for 5x7

Alt process printing often involves toning in extremely expensive precious metals like gold, platinum, and palladium. Using a flat bottom tray allows for the absolute minimum amount of liquid to be used for these steps, as trays with channels or ribs on the bottom require additional liquid to cover the paper.

Unfortunately, flat bottom trays also tend to be difficult to use, because paper can stick to the bottom, making it difficult to remove without damaging the fragile wet fibers and/or emulsion.

This tray strikes a balance - flat bottom so I can tone my kallitypes in gold without using more than 25ml of liquid, but with a small divot to make it very easy for a gloved finger or tongs to slide under the print and lift it without damaging it.

Note that having well-tuned flow is important to getting the best possible smooth surface for the bottom of the tray.

STL and F3D files provided, please remix at will to suit your needs. I'd love to do an 8x10 version sometime, I just don't have a big enough print bed :)

Design and description by BHuij , licensed CC-BY-SA.