Showing off my 5 minute ghetto bulk film winder.

[rpavich]

I recently bought 400' of Eastman Double X 5222 and after handing winding some onto a 100' sized spool, I decided to try and make something that would speed the process up.

I had some white tile board (used to shoot white backdrop shots) and an extra spool for a 100' roll so I cut a pencil down to make the spindles and lashed a BBQ skewer to make the handle on one of them. (that's the drive axle)
I used a 3" diameter piece of cardboard under the drive axle so I knew when to stop.

I taped the spindle of the drive axle so that it would turn the spool and take up the film when spun.

I was surprised to find that it worked beautifully, I spooled 100' in about 5 minutes or less.

 

[Gerald C Koch]

Same basic method that I use. Works very well. I did find the process a bit slow and fashioned a crank from 3/4" X 1/8" aluminum stock. A pin on the crank engages a hole on the take up spools. An offset prevents the crank from rubbing the edges of the films as it winds. Really speeds things up. Great minds work in parallel.