loading a plastic reel - help!!

[Pherdinand]

thanks Ian and Puisin (you can imagine that i picked the few better ones, though)

What is this "chamois" thing?

 

[iml]

I spent a couple of hours last night practising loading a reel in the dark. Think I've got the hang of it now, so I'll hopefully get some rolls shot and developed over the holidays.

Ian

 

[markinlondon]

thanks Ian and Puisin (you can imagine that i picked the few better ones, though)

What is this "chamois" thing?

A chamois is a mountain goat, Pherdinand. I think the Dutch is gemzen. We use the same word for the goat and the soft leather produced from its hide in English (we like to make the language work for its living ) mostly sold in auto shops for drying cars and windows after washing. For squeegeeing I just use wet fingers, I bought a squeegee once and threw it away after the mess it made of the first roll.

 

[Pherdinand]

Thanks mark
Maybe that goat comes from Chamonix mountain region?

Anyway
I got some more reels - this time the ones that fit the paterson universal 4 system. Together with a tank, of course. These are very new reels, one of them shows no sign of use.
Man, what a difference! The "test" roll I was struggling with, slides into it like warm knife into butter, I don't even have to use the ratcheting movements, i can just catch the film between two fingers on its edge and slide into the reel till it's completely inside!
Now if that freestyle package would arrive....

 

[iml]

Well, Pherdinand's inspiration finally got to me and I developed my first roll of FP4 this evening. All went well, a few small drying marks but they should be easy to get rid of.

Only trouble is, I don't have access to a film scanner until next week :-(

It was fun though, and easy. Looking forward to having a close look at the results. The negs look pretty good.

Ian