DIY Slitter

[RichardB]

Has anyone had a go at this? I'm thinking about getting 100D in 100ft DS8 rolls to load in my new Kaccema, and I'm pretty good at tinkering (I build electric guitars and amps as a hobby) so reckon I could make 100D pretty cost effective this way. Not as cheap as 64T, but a lot less than what it costs now.

Its just hard finding out any information via google or search functions about DIY slitters. Do any decent plans exist?

[alex-rus]

Probably LOMO slitter would help you but all of these which I have are cutting very unprecisely. And it will be very difficult. Why don't you get E100D in slitted S8 rolls, maybe from Wittner?

Best regards

[Jim Carlile]

Martin B. has a variation here on an old DIY project:

http://lavender.fortunecity.com/lavende ... itter.html

I've seen versions of this in old Movie Makers and Home Movies magazines. They're basically a block of wood with 16mm wide recessions, with a razor blade in the middle, and another block for a cover, tightened down. I guess they worked OK.

This place will make and sell you one for $30:

http://www.subclub.org/sponsors/goathil2.htm

Also the Minox people are big on splitting film, too.

[sciolist]

Many years ago, I owned a manual slitter that I bought from Jaakko Kurhi. It didn't use razor blades but rather a set of cutter wheels. Although it worked quite well between a pair of sturdy rewinders, I've always wanted a motorized slitter (Kurhi offered one of these, too, but I couldn't afford it and he's now retired). There were commercial quality machines like that made by Zyco, but these never seem to turn up on the second hand market.

[Jim Carlile]

If JK's retired then who's running the store?

http://www.jkcamera.com/meritex_products.htm

[sciolist]

If JK's retired then who's running the store?

http://www.jkcamera.com/meritex_products.htm

Good question. That's what he told me when I spoke to him by telephone in December 2008.

[aj]

The only cutting method with good results at slitting film are rolling cutters.

Yanking razor blades or other knife types through long lenghts of film is
simply not going to produce nice clean and smooth sides. The picture on that subclub page clearly shows this.

I have plenty of experience slitting Minox 9.2mm film from 35mm and 16mm cine film into 8mm. These rough sides may be fine (not to me, though) in a Minox or 16mm still camera but certainly cause trouble in cine-cameras.

[JCook]

Someone please beat me silly if I'm wrong but wasn't there a gent by the name of Paul S*** here a couple years back who had invested some time to do this?

Paul Staccato or something like that, his monicar photo had him in flightsuit. You watch I just butchered the crap out of his name now he'll come a gunnin for me. :lol:

[aj]

Paul Cotto built a DS-8 perforator. I.e. perforated 35mm cine with DS-8 holes using sprockets, driver motors, dies etc. Completed the thing. But never published on the slitting part. Seems he abandoned the project or sold it to some secret buyer. Postings by Paul have been sparse.

[granfer]

Richard, 1. try this link
http://www.subclub.org/darkroom/splitter.htm
and also follow the onward links. 2. Quartz cameras were originally supplied with slitters as part of their basic kit.
Granfer

[Janne]

Why not using rollers?

[aj]

Yeah, that is how the LOMO splitters work. Less accentuated
Steady as a rock and smooth as Kodak factory cut side.
Certainly when using it in mounted set-up.

[Jim Carlile]

There must be thousands of those Russian slitters all over the place-- they were a big deal in the 50s and 60s, lots of ads for them in photographic magazines.