Response to Bulk Loading Economics & Film Selection

I'm going to take a middle of the road view here. I bulk load TMX, FP4+, and HP5, using a couple of second hand Watsons and a nearly identical Alden-74. I've also used Lloyds and have nothing against them. If you can find a photo flea market, bulk loaders are usually cheap and easy to find- I don't think I paid more then $5 for any of 'em. Most of the easily available metal cassettes are junk, and the plastic ones are only a little better. Ah, for the days of the original Kodak snap-cap with it's soft and perfect velvet. Anyway, in spite of extreme attention to cleanliness, I've had scratch problems. Testing individual cassettes before doing anything serious is an excellent idea. No amount of visual inspection revealed my bad cassette, but bad it was. And it only takes one in the mix to drive you completely crazy. Now that my cassettes are proven, and with only reasonable attention to cleanliness, the results are scratch free. So, you can certainly bulk load with no problems once you get a system down. OTOH, if there is a scratch, it will be on the best frame of the roll. Also, if you bulk load in room light, the best frame will be on the exposed tail of the film- the last frame or two, because you forgot to stop before the end! Caveat emptor.

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