Still Having Trouble? Try this!

[@ubergeek1968]

I took photography in HS (1983-85) and I always had problems with those damned rolls. It took such a sensitive touch to ensure the film went into the grooves instead of touching itself.

[@daveh7720]

I had a teacher at university who taught us how to load those things. If you try to slide the film in and out now and then while you're winding it and it has about an eighth of an inch of free movement before it stops, it's loading properly. If it doesn't move it's bound up somewhere, so you need to unwind a bit until it frees up then you can start winding again. That saves you from having to unwind the whole spool to fix it.

[@ubergeek1968]

@@daveh7720 that is exactly how I was taught. Learning the feel for the spools is a totally different subject, though. It has been 40 years since I last tried to develop film, though.

[@daveh7720]

@@ubergeek1968 It was about that long ago for me too, but I just got back into film about 5 years ago so I had to relearn how to load those steel spools. As fiddly as they are, plastic is still worse.

[@daveh7720]

Dropping a steel spool is a major cause of that kind of bending, and it's almost impossible to see if you're not looking for it.

[@Casey_Schmidt]

That’s a great point! A couple of mine are slightly bent and give me trouble. Thankfully most of them are straight and pain free. I’m going to try to find an easy to to unbend them and share that later if I find success.