Fuji discontinuing Quickloads

[Dirk Rösler]

Beware, light is also said to become discontinued, especially at night.

Cheer up guys, there is nothing official on this yet. Innocent until proven guilty, as the old adage goes.

[Kirk Keyes]

That's the problem - nothing offical ever seems to be made.

By the way - I never had enough response to the bulk group order for Acros QL so I'll not pursue that. There were about 8 people for a total of 15 boxes that responded to the inquiry.

[willwilson]

Maybe somebody mentioned this already, but Badger graphic seems to think they are being discontinued in April. I don't use them but I sure wish I could afford to.

"UPDATE: STOCK UP ON FUJI QUICKLOADS. BEING DISCONTINUED IN APRIL."

http://www.badgergraphic.com/store/c...uct_list&c=235

[rdenney]

Rdenny: From my experience, one can't really seperate image performance on film until you get up past 11x or 12x magnification. 10x does cut it.

In that case, it is not important to me. The largest prints I'm ever likely to make, even from roll film, are 8x enlargements. If I can't see the flaws in a 10x loupe, then I won't be able to see them with the unaided eye on a 10x enlargement.

Rick "who'd never have any depth of field at all with a 12x enlargeability requirement" Denney

[Armin Seeholzer]

So guys if you really like Quickloads buy them, the only chance thad Fuji changes the desicions!
I just ordered 4 packs still have much Readyloads in freezer, otherwise I would buy 10 packs!
Buy them now and as much as you can afford!!!!!!!!
You should not talk you all should buy them and now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Did you get it!

My 2 cts. Armin

[Dirk Rösler]

That's the problem - nothing offical ever seems to be made.

In Japan at least they will issue statements on anything ever so small they will discontinue and that hasn't happened yet.

If Badger's only source for their statement is the BJP article, then they are perhaps "right". And saying something will be gone forever soon so buy while you can is never bad for sales, is it

[pocketfulladoubles]

Which begs the question for a novice - How long will they last in a home freezer?

[stealthman_1]

Well, I'm not going to buy 20 thousand dollars worth of quickloads...but they are handy and I did go and buy 120 sheets of Velvia, Provia, and Astia just in case.

Anyone ever contemplate reloading a quickload? I mean, it seems possible, just not probable.

[Armin Seeholzer]

How long will they last in a home freezer?

10 Years with only very small more base foog and a tiny bit less speed.

Cheers Armin

[Nathan Potter]

I've been studying possibly reloading Quickloads. You would need to save the sleeves or have a stash of them. I have a stash of more than a thousand because that's where the data for each image is written.

Besides needing the sleeves you need a stash of metal clips and that seems to be the tough part. The metal clip is (I believe), cold formed pretty precisely, to enable the film extension to be swaged semi permanently to the end of the extension. Also the clip is formed with a raised lip some .050 inch above the film surface on both sides of the film (total thickness about .120 inch. (3 mm.) The clip is U shaped so as to be slightly compressible when inserted into the QL holder. Having these made is not impossible but would need a bit of material engineering and some stamping and forming dies. The swage attachment method used by Fuji makes reuse of the clip about impossible since the 8 swage dimples actually depress the film extension making reloading difficult without using a specially designed expanding device.

The film itself has two leaders one about 1/2 inch long for the clip and the other consisting of the pull tab. They are both held to the film using a bead of sticky, temporary adhesive.

With Polaroid 545 holders and QL holders the mechanism that grabs the clip for sleeve removal then exposure consists of a short, reentrant tab at the center of the holder that fits into the the reentrant configuration of the clip.

Now in order to reuse the sleeves, the film extensions need to be attached, the clip swaged, all aligned, attached and loaded into the sleeve the dark - and preferably under clean conditions.

I have experimented using thin strips of double stick tape for the extension attachment to the film and this is OK but removal for processing is not so easy and processing houses would have to be instructed about the different adhesive. I have also experimented with card board clips held on to the film extension using double stick tape but cannot make this work well for several reasons - Too thick, not grabbed by the holder tab, etc. Might be able to get it to work though.

Biggest difficulty is doing all the assembly in the dark. A multi purpose jig will be required. Maybe IR glasses would ease the whole task.

The best and most practical hope for this is Johannas' approach of contracting with a job shop to work out the details for all the required parts. The polaroid type holder is definitely prior art from any patent point of view including the film/sleeve assembly so no patent protection is available and likewise there is no patent infringement to worry about. The whole device is prior art in the public domaine.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.