Kaiser Film Retriever issues

Ok update on the kaiser picker: using the Kaiser exactly as the AP video that AgX kindly posted above, ie inserting the larger of the two tongues into the cassette and then, but only then, turning the film spindle until a click is heard, then inserting the shorter toothed tongue and then pulling the picker out popped the film leader. Bloody magic!

The AP retriever works very much like the https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1574127-REG/ars_imago_dr2002_film_retriever.html a small retriever that works well under all the names it gets sold as.

The Kaiser works differently from the AP in its orientation - the Kaiser wants the cassette to be rounded side towards you. I am so used to the flat side of the cassette towards me that I kept trying to use the Kaiser in that orientation. The AP, and the Imago, catch the film between two stainless steel tounges; the Kaiser uses, not sure how to describe it, sort of like 'hanging chad' from badly punched sprocket holes, to catch the film's sprocket holes and pull it out. The long toungue on the Kaiser is only there to keep keep the film from hanging up on the felt lip.

BTW, if the film doesn't have a tongue the Imago retriever is a bitch to get working, if it ever does at all. The Kaiser retriever will pull out film that has a square cut tongue, as you might use with a quick-load camera.

Funny that the first time I had to pull a square cut end out of a cassette up pops this thread showing me how to do it. Truth is, I just notice the temporal congruity when it happens and ignore all the times when the timing was wrong.

Steve@f8 said:

. Bloody magic!

Click to expand...

Great! And you then have cassettes that as long as you leave about half inch of film when you cut it are ready made cassettes to which you can attach bulk roll film should you ever go that way

pentaxuser

As indicated I never thought much about this topic, but only learned by this thread. I guess sooner or later i will have some more samples added to my heap of stuff. Rather later, as so far I only came across in the wild in many years one sample of retriever.

I have used AP film retrievers, all plastic blades, for many, many years in my minilab and always found them to work perfectly. They do wear out with heavy use. The hard plastic end beside the film cassette will break off but they will still work. Only when the blades become damaged or torn is it time to replace the picker.

The video is good but one point I thought it missed was that if you turn the film spindle before you insert the blades, it makes it easier to insert the blades, and then you can move the first slider all the way up and in. The more the picker's tongue is inside the cassette, the better grip it will have on the film.