stand development: plastic or stainless steel reels?

[ymc226]

I am going to try stand development with Acros or Plus X using either Rodinal 1:100 for 1 hour or 1:200 for 2 hours. Is there any difference with using plastic Patterson type reels or stainless steel reels?

I've read that the plastic reels do not allow the developer to circulate as much.

 

[Sirius Glass]

As far as ease of use:

Plastic reels can be easier to learn to load the film until or if the ball bearings get worn or lost or if the reel tracks get sticky. Then they are the pits getting them to work correctly.

Good steel reels [Read: Hewes reels] last forever, are much more robust than plastic or most other steel reels, but take more work and daylight practice to get through the learning curve.

That said, I do not have experience in the type of development you are considering and on that I will not comment about plastic versus steel.

Steve