Sounds like you can blame this completely on the film. Cheap, thin base film is very difficult to load in that type of tank. It should be easier on the stainless steel reel, but it would be better if you shot a roll of tri-x. Some cheap film was never meant to be wound on home darkroom reels. Been there, tried to do that, failed miserably. Paul
> Well I finished that first roll of Classic Pan 400 35mm B&W from J&C Photo > that > I had in the camera yesterday. It has been years since I have developed any > 35mm. I had a choice of an old stainless steel reel and tank, or a Koday > Day-Load Tank that I had bought used a few years ago an never gotten around > to > trying out. > > Not wanting to wait until after dark, I decided to use the Day-Load Tank. It > having been a long long time since I had used one of those, I practiced > loading > an unexposed roll of film in it. No problem. So I put the exposed film in and > it > wound a couple of turns and locked up. I tried this and that, and then heard > the > film tear. Crap! I open it up and the film comes out in a knoted up mess. > Double > crap! > > So, what was on this roll of film? Oh some test shots. The first snow a > couple > of weeks ago. A tracked vehicle that I could not identify, so took some > pictures > of. And the "Christmas Ghost Town of Boone" photos I took yesterday. > > The test shots can be redone. The snow will most likely happen again. The > vehicle belonged to an out of town construction company, and I will probably > never see one like it again. Next Christmas is only a year away; of course > things may change a lot by then. > > I guess all that just goes to show that you should never experiment with > important photos. > > The other roll of Classic Pan 400 gets nothing but test shots on it and it > gets > developed in the stainless steel reel (of course I haven't used one of those > in > decades either). So maybe I can find out is I like this cheap film or not. > One > thing I can already tell is the film base is very thin and not very strong at > all. > > I had tried to find a copy of the instrstuction manual for the Day-Load Tank, > but all I could come up with are months old eBay listings. Because of that I > was > already angery when I started, which did not help (grin). I can think of > nothing more useless than an expired auction listing. Besides that the > auctions > all have their own search engines. Does anyone know of a way to make internet > search engines ignor eBay and other auction listings? > > I can remember when an internet search got you something besides "buy > something" > ads. Must be getting old. > > > -- > > graywolf > http://www.graywolfphoto.com > "Idiot Proof" <==> "Expert Proof" > ----------------------------------- > > > -- > No virus found in this outgoing message. > Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. > Version: 7.0.298 / Virus Database: 265.6.5 - Release Date: 12/26/2004 >
