A Reel Nightmare

Richard Lee

Richard Lee

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Following the recent purchase of a Crown Graphic, I decided to invest in a Jobo 2509n film reel after recent successes developing smaller formats in my rotary processor. Loading 'film' onto this reel is proving to be a real nightmare. I've been practicing this operation in daylight using cut down pieces of acetate (no film purchased yet); and I'm fast losing the will to live.

Loading the film without it snagging and then keeping the sheets on it's track is difficult enough, without then having to locate the retaining clips ('wings').

I would be grateful if anyone familiar with this reel (without the optional £160.00 loader) could offer any hints and tips, please. Thank you.

Richard
 
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I've been using earlier Jobo 2000 5x4 reels since 1977, there is a knack to loading them, the newer 2500 ones aren't much different in practice. Forget the acetate, most sheet film has far better rigidity. I can pop some scrap 5x4 film in the post to you tomorrow. Remind me of your address by PM.

Even the horribly thin based films like Technical Pan aren't too difficult to load.

Ian
 
Thanks Ian. I did actually tape a couple of my acetates back to back to build up the rigidity, but would wecome a few sheets of the real thing. I've sent you a PM.

Richard
 
A word of caution about the Jobo 2509n film reel, sometimes I have experienced uneven development when loading 6 sheets. I say sometimes because it doesn't happen all the time. After some research I found other users mention the same thing online. I've decided to leave the middle slots empty (only loading 4 sheets) and so far so good. The nice thing is it doesn't require much chemistry. I was previously using a MOD54 in a Paterson tank and while I had no issues with the MOD54 it requires 1 litre of chemistry for 6 sheets.
 
I’ve had surge marks on the long edges when using the Jobo reels. I hadn’t thought of reducing to four sheets per reel. Thank you. Those clip-on plates seemed to make no difference and I thought they were a bit fiddly clip into place. If the sheet isn’t exactly aligned, it fouls on one of the radial spokes and has to be jiggled carefully and gently back into place. They have to be pushed very fully in before they will locate and lock properly. Pulling, rather than pushing them into the reel seemed to work better, but involved much more handling.
 
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I found that by essentially freeing up both hands by mounting the reel onto a wooden base, I'm more easily able to locate the film into the grooves and the wing-clips onto the lugs. The prototype (shown) has proved to be invaluable, although version two will have longer arms to raise the reel a tad higher above the base.
 

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Richard Lee said:
I found that by essentially freeing-up both hands by mounting the reel onto a wooden base, I'm more easily able to locate the film into the grooves and the wing-clips into the lugs. The prototype (shown) has proved to be invaluable, although version two will have longer arms to raise the reel a tad higher above the base.
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Great design. I don't have a problem loading the film, you just need to remember to "wiggle" it a little sometimes to get the sheet all the way into the grooves.
 
It's a real shame that 20th Century Cameras is currently off line, his reels are really good.
 
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