Spooling film

[Pj]

After spooling 16mm film from two 400 onto eight daylight spools I thought there has to be an easier way other than asking a lab to do this, which will cost and buying single 100ft daylight spools works out more expensive.

I have designed and built an easy system to spool down 16mm film from 400ft film cores. I’m just waiting for some bits and then I’ll make a Youtube video demonstrating it. It can spool 16mm film from 400ft too any desired length whether it be onto a core or a daylight spool. For me the typical use will be to split film into half onto a core to be used in a 200 foot magazine for my ACL or to split onto four separate 100 foot daylight spools to fit my a-cam.

The advantage is that it allows me to work in normal daylight [only the initial loading is done in the dark] and I have fitted an accurate counter so I am always aware of how much film is being wound. I’m working out how much this has cost me, I am thinking of making some of these to sell, but would people would buy them? What sort of price should I sell them for?

Pav

[Will2]

Sounds like a useful tool. Decent re-winds are expensive so I'm not sure how you make it for a profit but I could use one. What are your costs?

My lab always spooled those down for free for me, since I'd use them for processing. Labs always have tons of those 100' reels laying around...

[slashmaster]

Don't think that would sell, If I was loading 100 foot reels often enough to need a tool, I'd get a 400 foot mag instead. But something that's simple yet a bit expensive for what they are would be 600 foot and larger super 8 reels. But they've got to have large cores and got to have those film gripping tangs that let you load the reel while it spins. Other things you could sell that are a bit more difficult to make would be a c-mount conversion kit for certain cameras. Or a pin registration kit for certain cameras. These things would interest me!