Leica Film Winder AFLOO Custom Workstation

I made a custom workstation for bulk loading film with a Leica AFLOO film winder & Leica ABLON film trimming template. Comments or questions welcome.

Looks really good, even with only half a cat.

seezee,

You shouldn't have cropped the pic, even if the cat is not included in the sale.

Oooops! Sorry, I was checking the Classifieds just now and didn't realize I was already in another forum.

What do you spool the bulk film from? You could mount a 35mm movie film rewind just to the left of your AFLOO to spool it from.

Yeah, I'd be interested to know exactly how you used this. I've got the AFLOO, I've got the ABLON....From looking at your FLICKR set on this set-up, I see that you've got little locating pins in the board to locate the ABLON, but presumably you use that after you've finished loading all your cassettes. But I've got the same question at BAC1967 --- how do you handle the bulk film.

I believe Tom A had a similar set-up, with the ABLON permanently mounted to a table in a darkroom. And I believe he had the bulk film on some sort of shaft so he could pull lengths of film. IIRC in the dark he'd place the spool in the AFLOO, pull out five feet or so of film from the bulk roll, then use a home-made ABLON sort of device to trim one end (or maybe he trimmed prior to cutting from the bulk roll), then attach film to spool and wind. How are you handling the bulk film? BTW, nice looking system!

i have one of those winding devices but have never used it. The Watson bulk film loader has the proper pieces to handle Leica cassettes, including closing the gate when you are done.

Nice setup though.

Just the folks to answer my question. I haven't used my Leitz winder for a while and now want to load some Leica cassettes but I forgot how many turns for a 36 exposure cassette. As for the feed source I simply place my bulk loader in line with the winder. All done in a roomy changing bag. Never had a problem. Also use bulk film for slitting film for Minox and Minolta 16. Seezee's set up is really slick...makes mine look pretty primitively. Again, I would appreciate a reminder on how many winds for 36 exposure roll.

guangong said:

Just the folks to answer my question. I haven't used my Leitz winder for a while and now want to load some Leica cassettes but I forgot how many turns for a 36 exposure cassette. As for the feed source I simply place my bulk loader in line with the winder. All done in a roomy changing bag. Never had a problem. Also use bulk film for slitting film for Minox and Minolta 16. Seezee's set up is really slick...makes mine look pretty primitively. Again, I would appreciate a reminder on how many winds for 36 exposure roll.

Click to expand...

About 30 turns to rewind a 36-shot roll, so figure there as a start.

I believe the Leica itself advises to cut a 5-foot length of film for a 36-shot roll. You get about 20 rolls of 36 off a 100-foot roll.

But what kind of bulk loader do you have? If the inner spindle has recesses for the knob on the leica cassette, it may well be able to load and close the cassette. My Watson does that.