ChrisR
I'm a well known grump...
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I have to start this post by saying, clearly I've been... rather daft. But I'm relying on you lot to help me recover from the impacts of my daftness!
So, I have a Rondinax 35 daylight developing tank. Very neat device, no messing around in dark bags to get the film on the reel. You just drop the canister in, pull out the end, clip it onto a strap, put the lid on, wind the winder which pulls the film out onto the reel, When it stops, there's a guillotine to cut the film (doesn't work with ployester-based films, but that's another story, no Rolle Retro for me!), then you wind the rest in. Develop much as with a normal tank, except there's only half the quantity of solution so you need to keep winding. That's just for background, and as they say in the adverts, some steps omitted; that is NOT the full operating instructions!
This is what it looks like, looking down with the top off. Notice the strap and the clip.
That's pretty OOF but I hope you get the idea.
Now to the daft part. A few weeks after I got it, the film clip came loose from the strap. The strap just loops through the clip, but then needs to be fastened back on itself. I couldn't work out how to fix it... so I stapled it! All seemed to be well, though as the months roll on I have noticed little specs in the stop bath and fixer, and on some of my negatives. Thos little specs are becoming little rocks. I suddenly thought, that stop bath is acidic, there are other strong chemicals, you've used a metal stapler, that is... daft:
So, now there are two possibilities:
a) I could replace the strap with... a replacement strap. I think this would have to be fabricated, as I don't think I'd get one new. The replacement had got to be fixed onto the central spindle, and also onto the film clip.
b) I could remove the staples, clean up the rust stains, and find a way to fix the strap back to the film clip. While it might be hard to visually remove the rust stains, I think if the metal staples are removed the worst of my rust fragment problems will be over. But how to fix it? Note, the first solution also requires answers to this question!
So folks, what should I do?
So, I have a Rondinax 35 daylight developing tank. Very neat device, no messing around in dark bags to get the film on the reel. You just drop the canister in, pull out the end, clip it onto a strap, put the lid on, wind the winder which pulls the film out onto the reel, When it stops, there's a guillotine to cut the film (doesn't work with ployester-based films, but that's another story, no Rolle Retro for me!), then you wind the rest in. Develop much as with a normal tank, except there's only half the quantity of solution so you need to keep winding. That's just for background, and as they say in the adverts, some steps omitted; that is NOT the full operating instructions!
This is what it looks like, looking down with the top off. Notice the strap and the clip.
That's pretty OOF but I hope you get the idea.
Now to the daft part. A few weeks after I got it, the film clip came loose from the strap. The strap just loops through the clip, but then needs to be fastened back on itself. I couldn't work out how to fix it... so I stapled it! All seemed to be well, though as the months roll on I have noticed little specs in the stop bath and fixer, and on some of my negatives. Thos little specs are becoming little rocks. I suddenly thought, that stop bath is acidic, there are other strong chemicals, you've used a metal stapler, that is... daft:
So, now there are two possibilities:
a) I could replace the strap with... a replacement strap. I think this would have to be fabricated, as I don't think I'd get one new. The replacement had got to be fixed onto the central spindle, and also onto the film clip.
b) I could remove the staples, clean up the rust stains, and find a way to fix the strap back to the film clip. While it might be hard to visually remove the rust stains, I think if the metal staples are removed the worst of my rust fragment problems will be over. But how to fix it? Note, the first solution also requires answers to this question!
So folks, what should I do?