was thinking last night about my first Bulk loading adventures back in High school. the School camera club had a darkroom one could sign out..
I measured the length I wanted by marking the DRY table with Masking tape, and puting another piece of Masking tape with the end in the air at one end. My hobby had to fit my allowance at the time (1960s) so I would buy a PX402 50ft roll of Bulk film. (My east german Camera I bought used for 5 bucks had a top shutter speed on 1/125 so Tri-X was too fast) Later I was delighted to find one of the local camera stores stocked 17metre rolls of FP4 orAGFA ISS for about the same price as the Plus -x - But slightly longer roll! I see on the web that Ilford and Foma still sell 17metre rolls- but only in the European market.
In the dark I would open the film can, and tape the end of the roll down to the tape that had been left with the end in the air. unroll the film until I reached the Other masking taple on the table, and cut the film. then attched the end of the film to the spool of an Ansco Versapan cassette I had saved using my roll of Masking tape.. roll up and put the cassette together. Talk the bulk roll and stick the end down at the start tape and do another roll, and another.
a quirk in that method was the edge printing on my rolls ened up upside down as the factories assumed that the film would be rolled directly into the cassette, while i was actuallt rolling fro the other end.
note that this method did not require that I use any equipment other than scissors and a tape measure to set the length of film I wanted.
A quick measure for working in the dark.
The average person's stretched out arms finger tip to tip, is roughly the same measurement as that person's height.
From the sternum, to stretched out arm, is about half that measure and, if you take a moment to measure from the crook of the arm, down to the wrist, you'll have a good, short roll of frames to work with.
The trick is, wear clean cotton or neoprene gloves to stretch out the free end of the bulk roll to these cutting lengths, cut the roll free, letting the film roll curl back neatly in your hand, and add the used film tail onto the spool, keeping it lined up square,l.
Wrap the spool and attached film snugly to the other end, where you'll add the precut tongue, continuing to roll up the film onto the roll.
Once you have your spool ready, slip it into the cassette body, with the far lid already in place, and then alline the tongue through the felt lips, and adding the snap cap or plastic, rotating cap on tightly.
With everything safe from light exposure, turn on the lights, add a bit of tape, just a sliver, mind you, to keep the plastic cassette caps in place and it does not hurt to get into the habit of doing the same to good metal cassettes, because strange things do happen.
All you need here besides the cassettes, films, tape, shears, dummy tails and tongues, and a dark area that allows you to stretch out your arms freely, is a small table to organize your tools for the dark operation and the dark bag and box of the mother roll, on.
No bulk film loader required but, PLEASE, DO WEAR GOOD GLOVES so your film is the n great shape when exposed.
If in the field, a dark bag is great, with a sealable.exposed film box and a light proof 'tent' will allow you to measure off.the 15 to 18 inches of raw film, to mount in the cassettes as short rolls.
Light proof boxes/bags of pre-spooled spindles and fresh film, can also be taken along if you want to rotate them through several hard to come by cassettes, just keep exposed film in order you need it and the unshot rolls separated.
Either cassette less spool can be kept in old Kodak black with grey lids until needed or back in the darkroom, where you can pull them out in the order needed for developing and ready the next batch of cassettes for another day out.
