I see that there is a set of tubes for sale here, so I thought I'd post a few comments about them, based on my experience. Take into consideration that I have developed several orders of magnitude fewer sheets of film than many members here that develop via other methods.
I had never developed any film in my life before I started developing B&W sheet film about 13 or 14 years ago. I initially chose to use BTZS tubes because of the small amount of developer used (2 ounces per tube/sheet). I don't recall now how or why this transpired, but a generous forum member, Joel Edmondson, sent me some sheets of medical mesh for use with the tubes. (Thanks again, Joel!) Inserted into the tube prior to inserting the film, they prevent film sheets from sticking to the inside of the tube when removing after developing.
Because I don't shoot huge amounts of film, using the tubes has worked out just fine for me. I always get even development unless I do something stupid (like emulsion side out), and the mesh works as advertised. I process whenever I have six sheets ready, and I often have a mix of normal, plus, and minus development, which is easy to deal with, using the tubes. My process goes like this, after getting the film in the tubes with developer in the caps: Spin as directed, with a safelight on. When the development time is up, I transfer the opened tubes to a tray of stop bath, with the safelight still on. I then fix and wash using hangers.
Not long ago my sheets of mesh were getting pretty ratty, so I thought I'd just develop some film without it. I had a tough time getting some of the film unstuck from the walls of the tubes. I hadn't seen any recent posts by Joel, plus I didn't want to bother him. I asked a doctor friend about it, and he said it was expensive stuff. Well, I looked on Amazon and found some that was food grade, in a quantity that will last the rest of my life: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1 It looks exactly like what I was using before.
Hopefully all this is of some use to somebody out there!
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