Bulk loading

[Ben johns]

I’ve been wondering about bulk loading hp5, looked on eBay and someone is selling a starter pack of a bulk loader, 5 canisters and 25ft of hp5 for £45 including delivery.
How many rolls of 36 would I able to get from 25ft? If It works out less than £5 a roll which is what I pay I might as well try it just to see if I like it. Also I don’t really use that much 35mm so I wouldn’t be making be very big rolls, so I assume the bulk loader can be kept in the fridge without it hurting it at all?

 

[mdjchat]

Conventional wisdom is that you can get 18 rolls of 36 exposures from a 100ft bulk roll of film. I have the Watson type bulk loader and loaded what should have been rolls of 36 exp but ended up being about 32 exposures. I got 20 rolls and enough left over for about a 10 exp roll.

I think that the small boxy shape bulk loaders are meant to be less wasteful than the traditional teardrop shape (Watson type) bulk loaders which I have.

You would probably be better off buying the bits and bobs separately.

 

[ChrisR]

Assumin 40 frames on a roll with the leader, at 1.5" per frame, that's maybe a tad over 60" or 5 foot per roll. So you might be able to get close to 5 rolls, but closer to £9 a roll for that first set... but you get the loader for free in that! No idea how much a loader costs though...

 

[Nomad Z]

I'd buy a used bulk loader separately if eBay sold listings are anything to go by - on a good day, £5 including delivery, and should readily get one for £10. Then seek out some reusable cassettes. Regarding film, I would wonder about what conditions the 25ft was respooled in. Spend right on the loader and cassettes, and you'd probably be able to pick up 50ft of film for roughly the same overall cost.

A bulk loader isn't exactly compact compared to 5 cassettes...



...and I'd be concerned a bit about moisture if stored in a fridge. Cassettes stored in canisters are much more resilient. Better to load all of the film in one go.

 

[niko]

I’ve been wondering about bulk loading hp5, looked on eBay and someone is selling a starter pack of a bulk loader, 5 canisters and 25ft of hp5 for £45 including delivery.
How many rolls of 36 would I able to get from 25ft? If It works out less than £5 a roll which is what I pay I might as well try it just to see if I like it. Also I don’t really use that much 35mm so I wouldn’t be making be very big rolls, so I assume the bulk loader can be kept in the fridge without it hurting it at all?

tbh if you don't use that much 35mm I wouldn't bother.

 

[Mr Badger]

I wouldn't be keen on trying to load a bulk loader in a changing bag, I found it stressful enough to do sitting at a table in a darkroom, mind you, in those days 100 feet of Barfen E6 slide film would cost me nearly all of my week's wages as an apprentice! Whilst ruining a full bulk film roll wouldn't have been the end of the world, I'd have had a damned good view of it from where I was standing at the time!

 

[ariel7515]

I have a Kaiser bulk film loader (it is exactly the same as the AP one), bought it out of curiosity, and happy with it. I was doing the manual job preparing my own film rolls in plastic canisters without a problem, but since I got the bulk loader the process is much faster and easier, especially to re-load used metallic canisters without having to open them.

At this moment the loader is in the fridge inside of a watertight plastic bag and never had problems with moisture or any other kind of leaks.

If you find one in good condition for a cheap price, then I do not see any reason to not to try it and see if the system works for your needs.

 

[Ben johns]

tbh if you don't use that much 35mm I wouldn't bother.

I agree, it just only cos I like using 24 exposure rolls and if the cost wasn’t much more than buying the rolls for this first lot might be worth trying

 

[Ben johns]

Assumin 40 frames on a roll with the leader, at 1.5" per frame, that's maybe a tad over 60" or 5 foot per roll. So you might be able to get close to 5 rolls, but closer to £9 a roll for that first set... but you get the loader for free in that! No idea how much a loader costs though...

I’ve seen them for £20 on eBay, but that’s not looking very hard

 

[shreds]

That takes me back.

Used to create differing lengths of different films for different jobs. No need to stick with the conventions of the manufacturers when you are DIY.

Had plastic cassettes that had a screw in type base, that were easier to handle than the metal types.

As said, it is usually only really beneficial to go through the faf of loading if you are regularly using reasonable quantities of film. I would imagine asking around at a local club or two might find you a now disused bulk loader for free. We regularly get offered old kit that has negligible value these days and the donees are usually grateful if they can find a good home.

 

[excalibur2]

Boot sales are the places to pick up photography gear for peanuts, I've seen loaders and dev tanks going very cheap....the problem is you never know when they are going to turn up so you have to go every week..it's just being at the right place at the right right time and hoping that the guy walking in front of you, by minutes, doesn't buy it first. This happened at one boot sale when a guy in front of me picked up a Canon FD 19mm lens and actually put it back down, of course I grab it for £12, but unlucky for me it's a sharp lens but some areas are OOF and even Miles hasn't the optical equipment to fix it

 

[Manwithacam]

I’ve been wondering about bulk loading hp5, looked on eBay and someone is selling a starter pack of a bulk loader, 5 canisters and 25ft of hp5 for £45 including delivery.
How many rolls of 36 would I able to get from 25ft? If It works out less than £5 a roll which is what I pay I might as well try it just to see if I like it. Also I don’t really use that much 35mm so I wouldn’t be making be very big rolls, so I assume the bulk loader can be kept in the fridge without it hurting it at all?

I bought this kit. The loader is being sold by the same seller for £20, 25 feet of film costs £13-£20 so you could get them cheaper seperately. I make 12 exposure rolls to test new cameras I buy. I should get around 14 rolls if 100ft is 750 exposures so 25ft would be around 188 exposures.

I also bought a second loader for £15. This one already had some film loaded. The seller said it had been in there for 20 years. I shot a test film to find out what the film was. I plan on developing it this weekend.