A Very Important Darkroom Accessory: Children's Scissors

[Alan Townsend]

When at Walmart (America's largest chain store) last year, I stumbled across the place in school goods where they kept the childrens scissors, you know, the very short scissors with the rounded tips, and I bought half a dozen at $1.00 each. I had looked for these before, thinking they would be good for changing bag use due to the rounded tips not being able to punch holes in the dark cloth. And I was completely correct. For 35mm, these are the best, maybe not for roll film. Even for cutting negative as well as trimming tongues after bulk loding, these are absolutely perfect. When I was a kid, the school scissors were cast metal and poor quality. Today, we have stainless steel with nice plastic handles, much better quality and made in China and very cheap. A few years ago, I had to buy an expensive negative cutter to cut my 35mm negatives, but these kiddie scissors work just as well since the are the correct length and easy to see where you are cutting. My strong recommendation.