Unicolor and Beselar drums

[Doug Paramore]

This post is not a question but what has been for me a solution to a problem wit h using Unicolor and Beselar (and other) drums to develop sheet film. One of the problems with the drums is keeping the films apart when developing four sheets, as the little rubber seperators tend to fall off, are hard to use and easily mi splaced. I solved the problem with one of my tanks by drilling a 1/8" hole throu gh the drum on two sides and then inserted a very tight fitting piece of round n eophrene in the hole so that it sticks out inside the drum where the rubber sepe rators fit. I marked the drum by sliding two trash negs into place and marked be tween the negs. I left about 3/8th of an inch sticking out inside. It is easy to slide the neg past the peg for the bottom sheet. It works great and there are n o leaks from the tight fitting plug. I made the plugs by cutting an O-ring to ab out 3/4 inch in length and tapering the end a bit so it would start into the hol e. Any round rubber or neophrene will do as long as it fits tight. I then pulled the plug through to the inside with needle nose pliers and trimmed it to length . The plug needs to be trimmed to about 1/8th long on the outside of the drum. T his is not in the form of a question, just a tip and can be ignored or deleted i f desired.

Regards,

[miles]

thanks for the useful info Doug; i haven't been there yet , but getting close. miles dallas, texas

[James Phillips]

Hello Doug

I must say that you have indeed devised an ingenius solution and one that would be a total fix. I also had that problem a while back and would like to contribute my solution. I bought at Wal-Mart a set of plastic hangers that have the plastic "clothes-pins" already on the bottom rung. The clothes pins come off just by expanding them and each hanger has four clothes pins. Because the clothes pins were a bit too wide to act as the spacer, I took a coping saw and cut a little bit of the sides of them in the shape of an upside down "L".

I now insert two films into the bottom of the drum and then while squeezing the pin slightly open, I slide it down the "V" section in the drum where the seperator normally goes. It is easy enough in the dark to feel the clothes pin bump up against the film and then I just release the tension and the pin remains in place throughout the processing. For the past nine months I have been using the same plastic pin with no adverse results. Because the pin and the spring it uses are totatlly enclosed in plastic, I do not have to worry about the chemicals causing any contamination.

If this sounds confusing then just email me and I'll send you a picture of the pin. This is one of those things that seems much harder to explain than to demonstrate. I actually only spent about fifteen minutes modifiying the pin till it worked properly.

Regards,