Patterson Tanks 2, 3 and 8 reel.

[Stephanie Brim]

Nevermind. Stupid phone.

[mfohl]

Yes the two roll will do a single 120.
The three will do two 120
The 8 will do five 120
And I have a spare 5 reel tank that will do three 120.

And I always run two rolls of 120 on my reelse, if you do this then you double those numbers

I'm curious as to how you do that. When I load a roll of 120 (or 35 for that matter), the film no longer advances after it passes the two balls. Once the film is beyond that point, no amout of twisting will move the film.

Please share your secret.

Tnx,

-- Mark

PS - I'll take the other 3-reel if it's still available.

[michaelbsc]

I'm curious as to how you do that. When I load a roll of 120 (or 35 for that matter), the film no longer advances after it passes the two balls. Once the film is beyond that point, no amout of twisting will move the film.

Please share your secret...

If you can't reclaim the piece of tape that holds the film to the backing paper when you unspool it then get a small piece of tape in a known spot before you turn the lights out.

Some film has junk tape, so don't count on using the tape from the film unless it's good film. I like the blue masking tape myself.

Once you get the first roll almost loaded, with a tail still sticking out, tape the second roll head to the tail of the first roll. But make very sure you have them straight. You can't feed the second roll if it's crooked.

The second film pushes the first one in front of it. But they must be coupled together to work.

This is very hard in a changing bag, for me anyway. I have a table in a blacked out room.

That's how I do it. Someone else may have better suggestions.

[michaelbsc]

Can you do the same with 5x7? Because if you can, I'm sold. Really. I was going to try to fudge something, but if something's *already* fudged, that's good, too.

Stephanie,

I keep thinking about fudging something, too. But first if you don't know about the "taco method" search on that. 5x7 on the ultra cheap that way.

What I'm using for 5x7 & 8x10, if I ever get back in my darkroom again with this stupid job, is a Unidrum and roller base. It works pretty well, but requires a bunch of flipping the drum that I prefer to get out of.

I ran across a Phototherm 4x5 holder for rotary processing made from cannibalized Patterson reels. See here: link http://www.apug.org/forums/forum43/1...son-reels.html

Those hacked up Pattersons were made for 4x5, but the 5 inch dimensions are the same, so my thinking is that a 5 inch contraption could be fabricated to hold 2 sheets of 5x7 the long way.

Of course, finding time is hard right now.

Please report success or failures if you try something. We can build the knowledge base.