Smart 120 film loader, but not smart enough

in a box of accessories I got a film loader, japanese made. Looks new , I can understand why it was never used, fingers are more than enough for loading 120 film in a metal spiral.




It slides to the width for 35mm spirals too, but the 120 part has a flaw, you can't load Kindermann-like spirals. All I have are of this kind. They have a spike:

Kinderman reels were designed to be used with their proprietary loader. Here's a photo of the 35mm version. I have both and they work very well

antonio_b said:

but the 120 part has a flaw, you can't load Kindermann-like spirals. All I have are of this kind. They have a spike:

Click to expand...

If you don't have any use for the protrusion, you could just dremel it out.

Both of those look like a solution in search of a problem.

Xylo said:

If you don't have any use for the protrusion, you could just dremel it out.

Click to expand...

actually I like the spike/protrusion of the Kindermann type. In the dark when I hold the spiral in the left hand I know that it is correctly oriented for spiraling in the film (in my right hand) if the protusion is up. Faster than feeling with fingers the wires of the spiral.

anyway, I understand very well that some people need a loading device or prefer that than hand loading. In my case I prefer to load by hand, I go faster.
So I was thinking to use this tool for something else: a spooler for my home-make 220 rolls. Either when I tape two 120 bands together, or as I will do soon, cut from bulk rolls.

took some epoxy putty and molded adapters, so I get this:











and just for the fun, I made a spacer the same way, so the tool can be used with a Kindermann spiral without cutting the protrusion:





epoxy putty is very convenient for all kind of small adapters that are not high precision. Molding with avoiding the epoxy binds to the surfaces is done with some thin plastic layer, I just use cuts from thin vinyl gloves, the same i use with developing chemicals. Then dremel/sand, etc :

Epoxy putty is a fantastic material. I mostly use it for making reinforcement fillets in hand made cameras.
For adapters, I design them in 3D and print them out.