A Honeywell Nikor plastic film developing tank with adjustable reels

[reddesert]

I found a daylight film developing tank that is a little bit of an oddball, to me anyway, but has a couple of interesting features. Some pictures are attached. The tank is branded Honeywell Nikor, but on the bottom it's labeled made in Germany. Unlike the well-known steel Nikor tanks and reels, it's plastic, with two plastic reels, and has a lid and reel center column that form a light trap and allow daylight pour in and out, similar to a Paterson or AP tank. The lid and reels are made of a hard plastic and the tank and cap are slightly softer/flexible.

- The first reel has detents to set for 16mm, 35mm, 127, or 120 film. The center column is part of this reel, not a separate piece.
- The second reel has detents for 16mm or 35mm.
- The reels have a fixed and moving side to walk the film on, but no ball bearing.
- The lid seals to the body of the tank with a simple O-ring. No locking mechanism.
- The light and liquid trap is such that the tank can be used for inversion agitation. Just don't shake it so hard that the lid pops off.

One might see this as kind of a cheap alternative from the 70s or 80s with reels that are likely inferior to a Paterson. But the interesting thing to me is that it allows developing 16mm / 110, and 127, with inversion. IIRC, the white Paterson reels will adjust to 127, but certainly not 16mm.

The O-ring seal on mine is probably a little worn down, but it looks like a generic O-ring that one could buy at a hardware store.

I found a recent ebay listing for the same tank that called it a "Honeywell 235," but I don't know if that's the real part number. I couldn't find it in a Honeywell catalog from 1970 at pacificrimcamera - it's probably later than that. Any guesses who made it in Germany? Did Kindermann make plastic tanks?

 

[MattKing]

Honeywell were a distributor whose name appeared on some of the products they distributed. The tank itself looks a little bit like some of the AP tanks, but I don't know that AP ever manufactured in Germany.
The reels look a lot like the Yankee reels.
An interesting mixture!

 

[Hilo]

Very interesting tank! I can't remember ever seeing this one in Europe. Having used the Swedish HP Combina tanks since the late seventies to now, I can say this type of plastic reel easily survives 50 years of active usage.

The 2 x 135film / 1x 120 is very practical and my most used tank. (between 1 reel, 2 reel and 5 reel for 35mm).

To also be able to do 16mm is a real plus.

I am curious if this simple lid works well for you. Obviously, you want to test it with a sink underneath. I would not be surprized if this lid hardly leaks.

Let us know!

 

[reddesert]

Yes, Honeywell distributed a lot of things including Nikor steel tanks - not sure if they actually owned the Nikor name at some point - the 1970 Honeywell catalog I referred to is hosted by Pacific Rim Camera here: https://www.pacificrimcamera.com/rl/00511/00511.pdf Showing the wide variety of stuff they distributed in 1970, including many metal tanks, but I suspect the plastic tank dates from later.

I haven't used the tank yet, but before posting, I did fill it with water and invert it to see if the O-ring seal was reliable. It didn't leak. However, since the lid doesn't lock, I'd worry a little about it slipping off during inversion agitation. With steel tanks, I also hold the lid and tank together when inverting it.

I have many other tanks, but the 16mm capability was of interest. I figured I'd post this to let others know since 16mm reels and tanks are relatively uncommon. The problem is finding these since searching for Nikor tanks brings up the usual steel tanks. I found this one in a charity shop, on the shelf among plastic water bottles.

 

[john_s]

The second photo of the base of the tank looks a lot like the bottom of an old Jobo tank. (But I know there are lots of differences with the tank and reels).