JOBO foot pump - eye injury

[Ralph Barker]

Jim, er, I mean Mr. Depp,

Sorry to hear of your accident. I hope your eye recovers fully, and that this won't affect your next movie.

[Peter De Smidt]

I have a couple of expert drum. With two of them, the lids remove very easily. With my example of the 8x10, it does not. The "filling with water" idea is a good one. I'll have to give it a try. Here's another tip. My foot pump broke awhile ago. As a result, I hooked the hose/stopper up to a small air compressor. I put the plug in the tank. Place my hand on the plug and the lid. Give a quick burst of air, and the tops on my two 4x5 drums pop off quickly, easily and without violence. I wouldn't do this on a tank which has a tough to remove cover.

[Clueless Winddancing]

A cheap, safe alternative to Pot Banging: drill a small hole in an ordinary rubber sink stopper that fits the Jobo inlet. Use an ear syringe (large lens blower) to blow a few puffs and the lid is raised safely. Guaranteed to not have women chassing after you.

[Paul W]

Ouch...i actually exclude the use of the foot pump in favor of a small air compressor I have using my hand to seal the hole in the jobo around the nozzle. The downside to this is that I do not not build up very much pressure in the drum... that is also the plus side. You can feel the pressure building, and you hand is already there to catch it. Saves some money on the pump and the pain. My worst problem is in temp changes making the lid stick, then i have to leave latex gloves on sometimes to help complete the seal. Have a blast... Paul

[Allen in Montreal]

Jim,

I am glad to read there is no lasting effects from this.
I am sure a few of us have learned a lesson or two here.

Last night I tried what others have suggested here, just filling the drum with water and holding my hand and the hose over the drum opening. The lid floated up enough that it was very easy to remove and there was no risk since the water pressure works through the skin around the neck of the drum at a certain point.

I would think many would not share such a moment, but you have prevented others from enduring the same accident,
Thank you!
best regards,
Allen

[Vlad Soare]

I always wondered why they made this crude system. I'm sure there are many ways of designing a watertight lid that can be simply and easily removed. After all, they did very well with the 2500 series.
I don't know, maybe I'm missing something, but a lid that must be forcefully removed by pressure buildup looks to me like the designer was drunk.
Is there a good reason why an Expert Drum could not have a lid similar to that of the 2500 series? One that simply clicks in place?

[Jim C.]

Is there a good reason why an Expert Drum could not have a lid similar to that of the 2500 series? One that simply clicks in place?

Could be a cost reason, I like to examine how things are put together and there's
a lot of work in just assembling the inner cylinders and the end caps that hold them
in place, the expert drums as they are now are expensive enough without adding
more tooling cost for a snap on lid like the 2500 series, I agree that having a 2500
series type lid would make life a lot easier.

[Jim Graves]

Last update ... am posting one more self portrait so this doesn't happen to anybody else ... eye looks worse but all is better ... vision is almost normal ... Doctor says everything is healing nicely ... only permanent damage will be slightly irregular pupil where the iris was torn. Be careful out there!

[Geckophoto]

When I used my jobo drums years ago I never used a foot pump...I just held it on the floor between my feet, and pried the lid off with my finger tips/nail along the edge, rotating it 1/4 turn till it all came loose...worked just fine and so do my eyeballs!

Another tip I did when processing roll film, you know you can double up the rolls back to back when putting them on the reels and just add a little bit more chemistry for processing. Saved me lots of time...ran 300+ 35mm/36exp rolls in just a few days!

Then I bought a roller transport colex..it was nice! No drums/reels/tanks!