35mm film cassett opener

Ross Chambers said:

What's a church key? Maybe it's a Protestant thing, unknown to we Australian Irish Catholics.

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The way I heard it, Wild West Uncoothnicks would carry their beer openers (varies with the teller whether that was the bottle opener or the can opener) on a string around their necks. When going to a civilized town, sight of that evil tool was enough to bar their entry to churches where decent people would be -- figuratively locking the doors.

The real etymology is probably much less entertaining.

Thanks for the 'church key' explanation. Seems to me that to learn about the real America, without being there, APUG and Garrison Keillor are the best sources.

Regards - Ross

Ross Chambers said:

...to learn about the real America, ...

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You do not want to do that.

Denis R said:

don't bother with a bulk loader
you're just asking for trouble that way, scratches

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Not necessarily true. If you're diligent about dust, and god knows we all are anyway, it shouldn't be that much of an issue. I've done more damage with those blasted film drying squeegee's than I ever have with bulk loaders, I've never had any scratched rolls that I could blame on them. I've got 3 bulk loaders, but the savings are a lot more noticeable in Australia, so it's worth any bothers that may crop up for me.

It's like plastic developing reels, there will always be people who swear by them and swear off them.

Ronald Moravec said:

Micro tools sells a "pull the leader out" device.

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Search for 'film picker' on the evilBay and there's a bunch for a buck or two. Their operation is not flawless, but almost so. I've got several laying around my place.

If you bulk load your own cassettes and foolishly cut the corners of the tail square you'll never get it out with one of these. The sharp corner will catch on the felt light trap. But if you round it like the commercial guys it will work fine 99.9% of the time.

There's a reason many mall one hour joint in the USA, and who knows where else, had some of these laying around. Once you've done it a couple of times even an imbecile like me can do it.

If you ever went to pick up used cassettes from a one hour joint to get 'free empties' you'll see that the film was extracted through the felt and cut at the end. The film picker is what almost everyone used to get the film tail out to feed into the machine. They didn't break open the cartridges. At least that's what I found in the places I checked out.

Fleath said:

Not necessarily true. If you're diligent about dust, and god knows we all are anyway, it shouldn't be that much of an issue

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SOME Bulk loadersare designed so that nothing touches the image area of the film except the felt in the cassette, Others have their own felt, and those are not of a problem.
The most common Loaders with the the open film path, the Watson are unfortunately of very light construction. I have and swear by my Alden 200, which is out of production for years and seldom turns up on e-pay