Stainless steel reel repair

I purchased a stainless steel 120-reel which ruined four rolls of Velvia film.
Contradictory to advice I fixed it by using brute force. A piece of hardwood between the sides, and pressure from a vice applied to the outside to straighten the reel up. Loaded roll number five this evening which took me thirty seconds in the dark. Result: Evenly developed film,-no frames ruined.
If anyone has SS-reels that seem impossible to load, measure the distance between the sides. Most likely the distance is not even all around the reel. If it is not, it will never load the film properly. Measure the thickness of the spiral-thread and multiply by two. The width of your film minus the resulting number equals the correct distance between the sides. Arching the film when you load it will ensure proper seating when the film straightens out inside the reel.

You have seen to it that the spirals are plane parallel.

The other problem is that need to be directly on top over eash other. Check around the top edge with the reel on a flat surface with a right angle that is perpendicular to the table. Check in four places, 12:00, 3:00, 6:00, & 9:00.

Since it got out of wack by dropping it, the reverse is possible.

I would check it out with a completed roll to see it works before commiting a new roll.

I checked it out with a test roll before loading it with the undeveloped roll, and the test roll loaded fine. When taking it into the darkoom and loading the undeveloped roll it handled very differently, loading the film with no problems, so it seems to be in working order now.