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Unicolor Film Drum II piston seal

mweintraub

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*le sigh*

Ok, so this weekend I picked up a Unicolor Film Drum II and Unicolor roller from a local used photo shop. This is my first go at drum / rotation processing so I was a little apprehensive starting out. Now I just feel defeated.

The drum can in a box, so it was in new condition, one thing I didn't think of was it's age and how it was stored. So trying it out with just water, the bottom was leaking. I removed the piston and it the seal there was cracking as I touched it.

Since I have to replace it, any one have some good recomendations on replacing it? I've heard of using coffee can seals, but I think that was for the top seal.
 

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maybe trimlok can help you ?
http://www.trimlok.com/cat/Rubber-Seals/All-Product-Categories_103.aspx
or a hardware / auto parts store might be able to h you might need to figure out the seal profile and just match it ...
remove the old one, and all the old glue, and attach the new one with contact cement ...
( or epoxy or caulk or something else can weather the darkroom chemicals ) ...
make sure when you use the unicolor drum you put vasoline on the seals before you close it and use the drums
it is the magic that most people done do, (so the drums don't leak as much as they tend to do ... )
 

Thanks for the link. I'm thinking of carefully take the current seal out and try to figure out the right shape to get a replacement. I haven't had a chance to check the local stores for replacement. I'll make sure to take it with me.

It seems that when you lock the piston in place, it pushes the seal out to make the sealed connection. Am I right in thinking this?
 
sorry to say, i haven't used mine in 7 or 8 years and i never paid attention to how the seal actually sealed but i think what you said makes sense
because you push down and the seal slides up and compresses ...
 
Do an APUG search for Unicolor drum gasket and there are several threads from the past discussing this.
 
mklw1954 said:
Do an APUG search for Unicolor drum gasket and there are several threads from the past discussing this.
Click to expand...

I found a few about the lid gasket, I'll look again.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Have you tried flipping the seal over to the other side, that should work for a while until you can find new gaskets (it worked for me).
 
Rick A said:
Have you tried flipping the seal over to the other side, that should work for a while until you can find new gaskets (it worked for me).
Click to expand...

That's not the gasket that's the problem, it's the one on the piston.
 
This is an ancient thread, but I have recently gone through some Unicolor film drum II issues myself. I should note that I found that the seal for the bayonet cap is the same as a Unicolor film developing drum. They are plentiful on eBay, some of them new. I also had the piston seal disintegrate. So far I have bought pieces or whole drums for a few dollars on eBay and managed to keep everything functional. I bought an o-ring making kit for when the last piston seal dies. I was looking at Jobos for the time when things really break down, but honestly I don't see any advantage for film developing. I'm into it maybe $100 total, and it works great with minimal chemistry.
 
Do NOT use Vaseline or petroleum jelly on the O-rings unless you're interested in cross contamination. My very recent experience doing this is that the petroleum jelly was retaining some blix and contaminating my developer between sessions (in spite of a very vigorous hot water wash between sessions). Took me forever to figure out why my developer kept failing.
 

weird
when i got my unicolor stuff i called unicolor and they told me to put vaseline on the seal (o-ring ) and it worked fine.
LOL i still have the jelly in the darkroom, but i can't seem to find the unicolor drums or base.
 
I have also always put a smear of Vasoline on my seals, never had an issue.In the very distant past, I did B&W, C-41, and E-6 in these. Now it's just used for B&W and color in done in a Jobo.
 
I have found that a good tractor/ agri. supply store has all kinds of useful things. Older tractors/engines use canister filters where there is a outer "can", that requires gaskets or o-rings to seal. I found a bunch of huge o-rings and gaskets. These gaskets can be used for the stabilizing bands that go around the outside of print drums. There's got to be something out there.
 
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