After hearing that I bulk roll all of my film a visitor to the gallery (and fellow bulk-roller) stopped by the next day with a small gift of a Fujfilm bulk roll film leader trimmer.
He told me that many years ago Fujifilm gave these trimmers out as freebies to customers who purchased several rolls of bulk Fuji Neopan film. He had two and offered me this one which I gratefully accepted. The Fujifilm roll in the photo above has been loaded with Ilford HP-5, my film of choice.
Normally when you’ve finished rolling a roll you trim the leader with scissors leaving a small bit out to insert into the take-up spool of your camera. It’s by no means difficult to do and a simple diagonal cut usually suffices. It is however rather fun to slide the beginning of a freshly rolled film into the cutter and press firmly down. The sound it makes is a good one and having such a nicely cut leader is rather satisfying. These have not been in production for some time but I bet that there are still some kicking around in junk drawers of photographers across the country.
After a casual demonstration of this device at a Totem Pole gallery meeting one of the members took note of the precision of it’s function and quietly remarked “Fujifilm really understands the Japanese heart…”
She was right.
Interested in bulk rolling your own film? It can cut your film costs in half. My personal introduction is here.