Stearman Press 10x8 anyone with any experience?

[Marley's Ghost]

Now with a 5x7 camera in my arsenal but no way yet to daylight develop 5x7 film I'm looking hard at the Stearman Press 10x8 tank ... with it's ability to process 10x8, 5x7 and 5x4. While I have no particular ambition to shoot 10x8 at the moment - never say never - it would give me 'all the options' (no I don't currently have a darkroom to dish process).
I have to say my experience with the Stearman Press 445 (£100) has not been all positive: while it does the job well enough, it needs a wider base so that it doesn't fall over like a drunken sixteen year old at his first disco whenever you so much as touch it. The negative carriers tend to be difficult to get wet negatives out of, and when loading it's fairly easy to simply knock a sheet of film clean out of the carrier and not notice in a dark tent.
The 10x8 tank is a hefty £170.00 so before selling one of the grandchildren or mortgaging the cat I wondered if anybody else had used one?

 

[Ian-Barber]

Although I only process 5x4 in the SP-445, I also can have issues sometimes loading the film into the holder. I always seem to get the film on top of the guides rather than underneath.

As for 5x7, have you thought about the method Steve Sherman uses with his drain pipe system, bit like the BTZS tubes only a larger diameter.

 

[David M]

I have used a Stearman 445. You're right.
Never knocked it over, but I have had leakage when I forgot to give it a squeeze before screwing down the caps. Is it standing on a properly level surface? Stearman suggest that it's massive enough to not need a waterbath.
A couple of bits of scrap 2"x1" glued to a base, with the right space between them (not too tight) should make a satisfactory, if inelegant, anti-drunken-teenager device. Or are you one of those people who can just knock up a CAD design after tea and run it off on their home 3D printer?
I have cut half-moon thumb notches into the holders to make it easier to remove the film. Pulling the film away perpendicularly from the holder seems to work better than trying to slide it out. I attach my drying clip where the half-moon is and pull gently away from the holder. As the lugs are so narrow, the film springs out quite easlily. Try not to jerk to it can fall off the clip.
Some of us on this forum have used very fine emery on the lugs that hold the film to make them easier to load.
Have you tried loading sideways by putting the long edge under the lugs on one side and then springing them into the other?
Hands off the cat! Grandchildren are two a penny.