DIY Bulk-loading; Leica cassettes...

[Luddite Frank]

Dumb newbie question...


I'm shooting enough 35mm these days that buying film in 100ft bulk packages is looking attractive.


I have about 1/2-dozen original brass Leica cassettes... will they work with a modern bulk loader, such as a Watson 100 ?


Or do I have to find a Leitz daylight bulk-loader ?



Thanks...

Luddite Frank

 

[payasam]

Frank, I spooled my own rolls for years and never had a bulk loader.

 

[jolefler]

Hi Frank....

Hi Frank....

A second vote for austerity. I also have a half dozen of those and just cut a conservative both arms' length in the dark and wind it on. I have been using tape to attach it to the spools, though, as I find the teeth in the Leica spool don't work as well as they should (go figure, after 70+ years).

Oh, but yes they do work with some regular loaders. I think I've heard the Watson & Lloyd's have the lever to open/close the cassette.

 

[dpetrzelka]

If any of you have decided you don't like using the Leica cassettes let me know, I'm looking for some IXMOO cassettes here.

Luddite Frank - loading film freehand in the darkroom is pretty easy with some practice, both with regular reloadable, and with the brass Leica cassettes.

 

[Luddite Frank]

Next "dumb question"...


Some of my Leitz cassettes were "polished-up" nice and bright on the outside by a well-meaning person (not me !)...

The spool and insides are still in their chemically-darkened factory finish; is the shiny, bright-brass outsides going to cause a problem inside the camera ?


Thanks,

LF

 

[ddutchison]

Take a cassette with you when you're shopping for a loader.

I have a Watson and an Alden and both work well with Leica cassetts - the watson even has a removable spacer to accomodate the two different lengths of the leica cassette (the M-cassette being a mm longer IIRC).

Both have a knob on their left side which can be rotated to close the cassette inside the loader (it rotates a knotched disk inside the loader which turns the cassette shut). Both also use a rotating gate (similar to the cassette) to block light, rather than felt light traps which will eventually collect dust.

Assuming your camera is light-tight, the polished brass exterior of your cassettes should not have any effect. Brass dulls down pretty quickly on its own if you don't maintain the polishing.

 

[Ronald M]

Watson has 4 holes in the disc opposite the wind crank. By turning the outside knob, the cassette will close. So do Alden loaders.

Trim the grab point on the leader. The angle is almost a 90 deg point. Form it by cutting off three sprocket holes on each side with a cut toward the center line of the film . Do not cut thru the sprocket holes but you need to cut as close to the sprocket hole corners as you can without cutting into them. I" long scissors are best for this or the ABLON trimmer and Leica Knife. The diamond point is three sprocket holes long.

Open the assembled cassett, push the film into the spool making sure to center it, put the spool in the loading slot, close the cover, wind on.

BE SURE to close the cassett before opening the door after loading.

After using the film, cut off the tail leaving 1" on the spool. Now make a reverse point and tear the outside triangles off. Pull thru in the original direction. It will not back up unless- read on. The second arrow has to be small enough pull thru the slot. If not and you can not trim it with a razor so as to pull it thru. then you must unscrew the two screws and force the retaining mechanism back. A small roller will fall out. If you do not get it back in the right place, the spring steel grabber will not hold the film. There are only two ways and it goes before the spring steel grabber I think. This is not the easier place to locate it, but it MUST go there or it will not function. Film will seem to grab, then slip if the roller is in the wrong place. They do not wear out. Only get reassembled wrong. skip to last paragraph about this being touchy.

You will need long modeling tweesers amd micro screwdrivers. Consider just getting extra cassettes to replace spools.

You can use a factory load in a cassette too. Open it and move the spool and all to the brass. Do not use the Leica spool. Before doing this bend the leader tab outward so you can rorate the spool in the cassette in the dark and retrieve the leader thru the window. Then close it.

This is fairly touchy, So cut the second arrow small enough on the base next to the spool small enough so it pulls thru.

Tamarkin in New York has many screw mount cassettes, no M mount ones.

You can use M mount ones in screw bodies, but not the reverse.

 

[Roger Hicks]

My own experience with loaders opening/closing Leica cassettes has not been good: soft plastic and hard brass have not been good bedfellows. Personally I'd go for darkroom loading -- you may care to look at

http://www.rogerandfrances.com/photoschool/ps how load bulk.html

http://www.rogerandfrances.com/photoschool/ps how choose cassetes.html

If you want to use a loader, install the cassette open (obviously) and then MAKE SURE it has closed the cassette by removing the lid in a darkroom or changing bag.

Cheers,

R.

 

[John Shriver]

I've had no trouble loading Leica or Canon magazines in Weston or Alden loaders. You do need to be sure the shell itself doesn't rotate during loading.

 

[Luddite Frank]

Thanks all for the suggestions and instructions.

I found a 1960's Watson loader, in the box on e-bay, so that is on its way.

I think I will practice a bit with some scrap film, both "free-hand" and with the loader, until I get the hang of it.

How does one tell the difference between LTM cassettes & "M" cassettes ?


Thanks,

LF

 

[payasam]

LTM cassettes are 2.2 mm longer. There is an immediately visible difference too, but I forget what that is.

 

[mr_phillip]

The FILCA cassettes for the screw-mount cameras, as well as being shorter, also have black-over-brass nipples (don't know what else to call them!) on the top – on the IXMOO versions (for M series cams) those nipples are chrome/white-metal.

The engravings on the bottom are also different. FILCAs tend to have either no engraving or say 'Ernst Leitz Wetzlar Germany' (some FILCAs have 'E Leitz inc. New York USA' instead, but they're uncommon, here in Europe at least).

IXMOOs all have 'Ernst Leitz GmbH Wetzlar Germany' on the base.

Remember that these cassettes are backwards compatible, so an LTM camera can use either cassette, but M cameras can only use the IXMOO versions.

BTW, if anyone has any IXMOOs they're not using, I'm always on the lookout for more 🙂

 

[ChrisN]

FILCA (for LTM) on the left, IXMOO (for M) on the right.

Note the difference in the metal knob that acts as a handle to rotate the inner shell open.

(That's not the correct spool in the FILCA, by the way. Some ebay sellers are not too concerned about the difference, which is why I have a FILCA amongst my IXMOOs.)

 

[Luddite Frank]

Thank you - very helpful !


LF

 

[Luddite Frank]

Bulk-load re-dux...

Bulk-load re-dux...

Well, my mint Watson "66" bulk-loader arrived Thursday, complete with B&W film already in the bulk magazine ! 🙂

It is late-'50s, Burke & James manufacture; beautiful black bakelite, not even scuffed.

So, I decided to load-up some of the film and see if it was still good...


There are no markings on the film, aside from some numbers printed along the sprocket-holes every so often...

The base side is shiny-gray; the emulsion side is a dull, lighter gray.

The sprocket-hole punchings are flat on their long-sides, but rounded on the short ends ( like a 1950's TV picture-tube); don't know if that helps ID the films mfr... ?

I have four screw-mount cassettes, and one M-cassette.

Besides being marked with Ernst Leitz GmbH on the bottom, the M-cassettes have a little bump-in nodule in the groove in the bottom of the can, to the right of the word "Germany". ( I presmue this is to engage a locking lug in the M body, to prevent the cassette from rotating?)
At any rate, screw-mount cassettes have a complete concentric groove on the bottom.
This is probably the quickest way to tell the difference, if one is looking at a single cassette.

Another thing to watch-out for is the latch-spring; whover polished the black off of my cassettes, pried the spring away from the cassette, and "sprung" the spring - it no longer lays tight against the body, and therefore does not latch. I can still use the cassette, but I have to be careful of the light-trap, as it no longer locks in the closed position.

( If any one has a trick for "tightening" the flat spring so that it lays tight against the cassette, I'd love to hear it; I can't see a way to do so w/o removing the spring, then having to re-rivet it... 😡 🙁 . )

I've managed to successfully (?) load four Leitz cassettes, and one Seattle Filmworks can that was lying around...

I have some vintage 1950's Plus-X cans I might load, just to really baffle the P&S digital railfans on my next steam excursion....


Thanks for all the input on this subject !

Regards,

Luddite Frank