Yashica Half 17 Rapid - spare rapid canisters, anyone?

[pixelatedscraps]

Picked up this lovely Yashica Half 17 Rapid but it only comes with one Rapid canister. Does anyone know anyone who might have a brother, a cousin, a passing stranger in the street with a spare one - or 5?

Near impossible to find - aaarghhhh!

 

[Murray Kelly]

I am making enquiries from someone I know who adapted cassettes from a disposable camera.

The lead of the film will not work properly unless trimmed the correct way. Inside the cassette are two bronze coils to coil up the received film and prevent it snaring the felt light trap A pointy lead will have terrible trouble after the first frame.

I will try some ASCII art. Essentially, tho, the film has two bumps centered at the sprocket holes and dips in the middle.

----\
000)
....,/
....|
....|
.....\
000)
----/

I have 2 Agfa Rapids and one takes 12 and the other 18 square frames. Same length of film. Use a bit more than you calculate fbecause getting the lost end out is 'difficult' to say the least.

You can put the cassette in the take-up side and roll the film naked on the other side, in the dark

There is a plastic insert inside that limits the amount of film you can load but the Agfas count to the end and just stop anyway. I have no idea why the engineers put it there. It definitely restricts hand loading but persistence pays off. The plastic roll is 2cm in diameter so you can imagine how little space is left for film.

I dismantled and re-assembled a couple because I was in strife getting the film to feed and just removed them. After that - no probs.

I will get back when I know the details of the adaption. Looking at some of the plastic reloadables I could see how they could be shortened and the ends blanked off. Use PVC glue.

The automatic film speed sensor on the ones that have that facility is the 'T' on the side with a letter denoting the film speed. It pushes down a lever the correct amount and sets the meter to the film speed.

Cheers
Murray

 

[Murray Kelly]

Just realised that the way the film is fed from the supply to take-up makes it impossible to push the film way down into the take-up side. It stops pushing when there are no more sprocket holes to engage. There is always a tail visible sticking out of the cassette right across the gate which will always be fogged.

You could put in a 6 exp length and it wouldn't 'swallow' it like a regular camera, pulling the film thru. It's a push system. Got carried away with the intracacies of the innards of the Rapid system cassettes.

Sorry for that!

 

[Murray Kelly]

Found it. It is from a member of RFF too! Hope this helps.

Murray

QUOTE
Check my post # 7 in this RFF thread
http://PentiCameraThreadRFF.notlong.com
I have used a Fomapan cassette and it is better than Ilford ones, as the Ilford (and other brands, I guess) have a sort of groove where the metal wall of the cylinder fits the metal lid. This groove disappears when you shorten the cassette to make it smaller (just a few millimeters) – as a consequence the lid does not fit so well. Fomapan cassettes have a plain straight metal wall that fits nicely in the lid even after cutting. This was used in a Penti Half-frame camera, the film is pushed with a lever that grabs the sprocket holes above the chamber; if some camera winds the film by pulling the film, from the receiver cassette,it won't work (the spool inside the cassette does not move and will not pull the film)
A cassette, scissors and black tape is all that is needed.
I will provide more details, if needed, just ask
Regards
Joao

 

[pixelatedscraps]

Murray, you are a godsend. I just got back from two trips overseas and Tapatalk isn't working well for me at all lately.

I'm going to read it all over again this weekend, as even I'm a little lost after the first read-through, and will respond again. There may be some additional dumbing down of instructions needed but I can't wait to get started.

Again, thank you!