scratches on self-loaded film

[sanmich]

Hi

Beside a few (too few...If you want to sell yours, Pls PM me...) IXMOOs, I have to use regular cassettes with the small brushes/velvets trips for my MP.

Of course the danger with these is a small particle scartching the whole film length...

How do you keep away from scratches??

Thanks!

 

[troym]

Three tips.

1. Be sure to clean the felt light trap of the cassette with canned air or a piece of tape each time before you reload it with film. (The metal cassettes are easier to clean, because you can open them up more fully to get at the felt light trap. But I find the plastic cassettes easier to use in general, and their screw-in caps hold more securely.)

2. Keep track of how many times you use each film cassette. I toss mine after a set number of uses.

3. Don't throw your cassettes back into the pile of "empties" until after you've developed the film you've extracted from it. That way, if you find scratches, light leaks, and such like after developing the film, you'll know which cassette is the culprit and be able throw it away.

 

[jordanstarr]

I hope I don't offend you, but are you sure it's not the bulk loader? It could be that you're not opening it all the way when you're loading the film (I accidently loaded my first two rolls that way when I started years ago). It could also be that the bottom ledge where the film is coming out of the loader (perhaps some rough plastic is rubbing the film).

I'm not an engineer or a chemist, but I know that it doesn't make sense that velvet is scratching something as it's a lot softer than the surface of the film. I recently used some pre-war 35mm vintage canisters that have 4 decades of aging and use on the velvet, but no scratches on the film.

 

[Al Kaplan]

Always keep them in some kind of container, whether loaded or unloaded, exposed or unexposed. I hand load rather than using a loader. The film gets directly right on the spool. That's one less trip through the velvet lips. I mark the cassette with a Sharpie everytime it gets reloaded. Five times and it's tossed. I try to use my Leica cassettes where possible but they don't fit some cameras, and sometimes I need more than ten loaded cassettes.

 

[troym]

I'm not an engineer or a chemist, but I know that it doesn't make sense that velvet is scratching something as it's a lot softer than the surface of the film. I recently used some pre-war 35mm vintage canisters that have 4 decades of aging and use on the velvet, but no scratches on the film.

I think the concern is not about the light trap itself, but rather that a piece of grit will get caught in the felt or velvet and scratch the film. Thankfully, it hasn't happened to me yet, but sanmich is wise to beware of the danger.