Keith
The best camera is one that still works!
I used a changing back a couple of times and then gave up on it and made myself a light proof enclosure in the corner of the room. South East Queensland/Brisbane is no place for changing bags ... the moment you put your arms in the things you begin to sweat and the whole situation becomes unworkable very rapidly!
KoNickon
Nick Merritt
This is true for "traditional" reels too though, right?
wlewisiii
Just another hotel clerk
Plastic ones, yes. The good stainless ones though are not as touchy in my experience, especially the Nikon branded ones.
The advantage the plastic ones have is that they can have the twisty motion thing that helps you click the film onto them.
I think I only have steel ones any more but i haven't used them in a long time, only my Rondinax box or the local lab.
ray*j*gun
Mentor
Yep that's for sure.
Freakscene
Obscure member
Nikor (_not_ Nikkor) and Hewes steel reels work fine wet. Soaking even. You don’t need to shake them off.
Plastic reels need to be dry. Very dry. When I lived in Brisbane I put them in an incubator or dried them with a hair dryer. Otherwise it was a diss-ast-er.
Steel reels eventually build up wetting agent. I used to put them in a dishwasher nice per 15-20 rolls/uses.
KoNickon
Nick Merritt
Why do the plastic reels have this problem and not the steel? One would think that a wet surface is a wet surface, whether steel or plastic.
armadsen
Established
Because when you load a plastic reel, the film slides across the surface of the reel "tracks", and if they're wet, the water causes the film emulsion to swell up and become sticky, meaning the film can no longer slide freely through the the reel. (And this is leaving aside the effect on the back-and-forth friction loading system.)
When you load a stainless steel reel, you basically continually lay the film directly into the innermost track, it doesn't slide through the entire length of the outer spirals before getting into place, and therefore doesn't really slide across the surface of the reel at all. Also, the overall surface area of contact between the reel spirals and the film is a bit lower, just due to the shape of the reels (which have a round cross section, not flat).
KoNickon
Nick Merritt
Got it! Thanks. And presumably using a changing bag in a humid environment can add to the problem.
agentlossing
Well-known
Yes, however, the big difference is that you can't see or feel what is happening inside the Lab-Box, unless the winding gets so rough that you can tell something is going wrong. In the darkroom I could always tell by feel when the film wasn't spooling correctly.
Keith
The best camera is one that still works!
I would imagine that a soak in a mild solution of CLR would be a good way to keep them clean. In my experience the plastic reels need to be really clean as well ... the slightest trace moisture on a Paterson reel is instant disaster as you say.
ranger9
Well-known
You can actually load most plastic reels the same way - by starting the film at the inner end of the groove and then rolling outward. It's trickier because there's no clip to hold the film, but it can be done.
Godfrey
somewhat colored
The same is true in the Agfa Rondinax tanks.. You do acquire a feel for when they're loading correctly, or not, over time. I've processed about 200-250 rolls of film in Rondinax and the Lab Box tanks: only experienced one mis-load. The trickiest part of using the Lab Box is as someone else mentioned: loading 120 format (6x6, 12 shot) film without clipping a frame. The Rondinax-60 seems to give a little more leeway in that regard.
I've never even tried to load either stainless or plastic reels when they're wet. I wash them and dry them with a hair blower if I need to do more than one roll in a day. (... Or just pull out another tank, having a couple of spares Rondinax or Lab Box is good for that.
)G