Going stainless ?

rcphoto said:

I photo-flo my film in my reels in my tanks and don’t have an issue with foaming. If your photo-flo is foaming to the point it’s affecting film, you’re likely not diluting it properly.

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If one uses PhotoFlo while the film is in the reels, the reels need to be scrubbed with hot water and a tooth brush or the film will start sticking to the reels.

I have plastic Patterson,Unicolor reels and tanks along with one Yankee tank and reel. I also Nikor and generic SS reels and tanks, plastic and metal lids from one 35mm size to 10 35mm reel size. I've never used Jobo system. There is of course a learning curve with every system, with that in mind it takes longer to get the feel of loading SS reels. I learned to load SS reels in high school and continued to use SS in college. When I enlisted in the AF and attended photo school I was well ahead of most who had little or no experience, our class actually lost a student who just couldn't manage it. Give yourself time, sacrifice a roll of 35mm and 120 and spend a night watching TV while practicing loading until you load a roll time after time without problems. In terms of your question, if I had to pick just one I would stick with SS.

Sirius Glass said:

If one uses PhotoFlo while the film is in the reels, the reels need to be scrubbed with hot water and a tooth brush or the film will start sticking to the reels.

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When I was using steel reels and tanks with photo flo I didn’t have to do anything out of my ordinary process to clean them. I would thoroughly rinse everything with hot water after every session but no intensive scrubbing was done and I never had a problem with foam in something like a hundred or so rolls. Had no idea until just now that photo flo could cause this problem.

Just don't let it dry on the reels, then rinsing and a rub with the fingers will be fine.

When I bought reels for the university I found many of the cheaper ones arrived bent. When I finally talked the profs into letting me order Hewes (like kids and mules, you got to let them think it was their idea), the number of bad rolls, the number of times I had to check reels for the students, and all that, dropped dramatically. Buying a couple dozen was not cheap, but worth every penny.

Sirius Glass said:

If one uses PhotoFlo while the film is in the reels, the reels need to be scrubbed with hot water and a tooth brush or the film will start sticking to the reels.

Click to expand...

I have never run into any sticking issues. My cleaning regimen is nothing more than dumping out the photoflo from the tank and putting my reels and tanks to air dry on a wire rack.