plastic or steel 35mm reels? tank?

Vaughn

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SS Hewes -- last you a lifetime, easy to load with a little experience/practice.

Vaughn
 

Venchka

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Jobo & Paterson. Maybe 90% of the time Jobo, Paterson 10%. Both plastic. Both work. I learned on Nikkor tanks and reels. I have Nikkor clone tanks and reels for 35mm & 120 but have not used them.

YMMV
 

sidearm613

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JBrunner said:
Nikon.

Hewes.

All else is pretenders.
Click to expand...

sorry, J, but i gotta disagree with you. Canon is better in my humble opinion.

I do agree with you on one thing though, and as my reply to this thread, get the Hewes double (16 oz) tank with twin Hewes 35mm reels. the tank will also take 120 film if you decide to do that as well
 

PhotoJim

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I use plastic primarily. There are a few stainless reels and tanks in the darkroom (inherited from other photographers who gave me or my father-in-law stuff) and they get used in a pinch, but not often.

One thing I like about Paterson tanks: you can buy huge tanks. I have four different size tanks (one fits 2 35mm, one 3, one 5 and one 8) so I can do large batches of film. The bigger tanks take a little practice to get used to, but I get great results out of them. They save a lot of time when I get behind in my processing.
 

nickandre

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I like stainless, but it's harder to roll. I would start with plastic especially if you are doing B+W as temp doesn't need to be maintained. Stainless is better/more durable in the long run.
 

Anscojohn

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Stainless except for 220. For that, plastic.
 

Rob Skeoch

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I use the ss... in fact I just opened two new Kindermann reels this week, but I recommend the plastic... way easier to load.

Learning how to load a steel reel without touch marks remains the most difficult part of photography.

-rob
 

df cardwell

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I'm amazed that I could have mastered such a difficult thing as loading a steel reel so easily !
(unless it really isn't that hard)

the big thing, the BIGGEST thing in the whole entire world is that
cheap steel reels are are impossible, and expensive ones are easy.

Today, Hewes makes the best ever.

The second biggest thing in whole entire world ?

Fill the tank with developer and drop the loaded reel into it.

Plastic reels and the BIG FREAKING MISERABLE TANKS are the worst things ever.

EVER !!!
 

nyoung

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Stainless all the way.

Granted stainless reels may bend if dropped and EVENTUALLY become unusable BUT plastic tanks will crack when dropped on a hard floor and INSTANTLY become unusable at a much higher replacement cost.

A true Jedi master can load two rolls of film - back-to-back - on a single stainless reel thus running 8 rolls at the time in a stainless tank intended for 4-35mm or 2-120 reels.
 

David A. Goldfarb

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Anscojohn said:
*******
Don't you mean Nikkor (a company which had nothing to do with Nikon)?
Click to expand...

I think you mean Nikor, which made darkroom equipment. Nikkor has everything to do with Nikon.

Another reason to use stainless (and the Hewes 120/220 reels load very easily, I find) is that the tanks are indestructible, so there's not much downside to buying used ones for cheap off eBay or wherever, and you can get a bunch in different sizes for different sized batches. I've got tanks for 1, 2, 5, 8, and 12 35mm reels or half as many medium format reels. The lids are also pretty standard, so you can upgrade old ones to new Kindermann lids that fill more quickly than some of the old kinds and are easier to remove and less leaky than the metal lids usually are.

If you come across what looks like an 8-reel Kindermann tank without a daylight cap, that's most likely a film washer, and it's slightly larger in diameter than a normal tank, so it won't take a daylight fill cap. If it's complete, it will have a metal tube with four arms on the bottom and a hose fitting that screws into the top.
 

Phillip P. Dimor

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I like the Kindermann 35mm reels as they have these two sharp teeth which puncture your film right at the start of the roll. If you're lucky, you'll puncture your thumb and bleed all over your negatives.
 

Shawn Rahman

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I am simply amazed that there are so many recommendations to an absolute beginner to use stainless, when sucessfully loading plastic is so much easier for a novice.
 

cherryrig

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Shawn Rahman said:
I am simply amazed that there are so many recommendations to an absolute beginner to use stainless, when sucessfully loading plastic is so much easier for a novice.
Click to expand...

That is kind of true, however I started with plastic reel and tank and I didn't really get on with it. Sometimes it was easy to load, sometimes quite hard. Where as now I got given a Kindermann tank from this guy at work and bought myself 2x 35mm and 1 x 120 Hewes reels and those things are soo easy to load!!

Steel takes up so much less space, the 35mm reels load soo easy but it just takes getting used to it really. Once you go steel I find you wouldn't go back to plastic!!
 

JBrunner

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Shawn Rahman said:
I am simply amazed that there are so many recommendations to an absolute beginner to use stainless, when sucessfully loading plastic is so much easier for a novice.
Click to expand...

I was simply amazed after years of loading stainless reels without a problem I got a plastic reel and tank and had so much trouble loading it that eventually I had to kill it.
 

nyoung

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It depends on where you start.

If you spend some time practicing with a SS reel and some scrap film to begin with, you will learn to load them and from then on all will be easier.

I've taught hundreds of high schoolers over the years on SS reels and I've never found one who couldn't do it.

Over the long haul, SS is much lower cost than plastic.

Also, if you practice and learn with 120 on the stainless reels, 35mm is drop dead easy.
 

VaryaV

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Ok, time for some humiliation........ I first started my ventures into serious photography about 5 years ago. My father was still alive then and sent me everything I needed to get going. SS, plastic and god-forbid one of those blasted noodles. Well, I couldn't for the life of me master the SS. And. for some reason, plastic just snaps in my hands, and I have little hands mind you..... but no patience.....I took to the noodle. It was so easy, so fool proof.... I bought several more. And, then I did a really dumb thing........ I told my dad.

I never heard the end of it...... he taunted me and humiliated me....... and started calling me "the noodle kid." Well, that was it........ I practiced long and hard, for weeks......... finally, I got it......I was so proud to tell him that I was finally spooling 120 on SS reels. His eyes were beaming. I will never forget that........... however, to this day I still cannot spool the ones with the spikes that he gave me ----- ha ha ha. But, I never told him that. I have to admit that I still pull those noodles out of the drawer every once and awhile for a chuckle. Cheers.
 
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wiltw

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Some cheapo stainless reels are fairly difficult to use! Old Nikkor or Kindermann reels are the ones to own.

'noodles'...
Kodak originally came out with the film processing aprons about 40 years ago, and stopped making a long time ago. Looked like a very long, skinny, transparent lasagna noodle. You simply put the film and the procesing apron together at one end, then roll them up like a jelly roll. Is that you you recall VaryaV?
 

VaryaV

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They are also referred to as aprons..... the main problem I had with them is that they left tiny little white dots along both sides of the film..... they look like lasagna noodles.

yup - that's right!

I bought them at Freestyle not too long ago (5 years) or so.
 

VaryaV

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Thanks, wiltw - they are kinda funky.
 

MattKing

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The aprons are great, if you use the classic Kodak ones.

The freestyle ones are more finicky.

I've been trying to adapt them to permit developing two 120 rolls in a taller stainless steel tank, but I haven't found enough top plates that are compatible with the centre wire.

Matt
 
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