Gucker
I picked up this tank as part of a second-hand lot, so luckily I didn’t have to pay extra for it. As this tank has transparent spirals, I’ve recently been using it for reverse processing and have had to put up with a few annoyances.
It’s a tank for film development where you can insert the film canister whole and feed the film into the spiral under light. That works quite well, but the machine doesn’t cut the film cleanly at the end, and if you’ve had sufficient exposure right to the very end, the last frame is partially ruined.
Added to this are the following drawbacks:
- the can doesn’t close properly, and if you screw it on even tighter, you can hardly open it again, as the diameter is so large that it’s difficult to grip;
- if the spiral rests on a raised section of the can’s base when closing the can, the inlet becomes sealed and you have to fumble around in the chemicals (hopefully wearing gloves!) to turn the spiral;
- compared to others I own, the tank empties slowly and poorly;
- you can also slide the film into the spiral – the extensions are there for that purpose – but the spiral has no gripping mechanism, so you always have to push it, which is only possible for shorter lengths of film; I tried this and found that the film had slipped out again during development!
To me, this is a complete design failure, and if any of you come across this device: best to steer clear of it.
