advice re rejoining film strips?

[Gregory C]

I have a film strip loader which can accommodate a full roll of 35mm film. I'd like to use it because it would require far less intervention and time to scan a single roll of film rather than 6 or 8 strips of film.

unfortunately, many of my films have been cut into strips of 4 or 6 frames by the processing shops. I'd like to rejoin them to scan.

does anyone have any experience or advice with rejoining film strips? would super glue work without harming the images? would it be strong enough to endure the stretching of the scanner film loader?

I'm using a Nikon Super Coolscan 4000ED.

regards
Gregory

[LSI_Noack]

Dear Gregory

some our staff have been privately experimenting with glueing film strips together. Mixed success. Sometimes it seems outright dangerous to both, film and scanning hardware. Sometimes it went smoothly.

Did you try anything special? What does work best in your experience? We are as eager to find a good solution to this as you are...

And, BTW: Merry Christmas <:o)
Sonny Noack
- tech support, LSI AG -

[Gregory C]

I found that it is possible but difficult to re-join the film strips together and scan them successfully when using the Nikon Super Coolscan 4000ED.

guidelines:

1. Important: the perforations along the edge of the film cannot be covered even by transparent adhesive tape otherwise the scanner sensors will not be able to detect the perforations and will refuse to feed the film beyond the affected area.
   
2. the film has to be joined as closely and accurately as possible. it was suggested to me by a person with many years of Nikon experience that I obtain a Fuji film splicer with which to cut, align and join the film strips. unfortunately, these splicers are no longer available in Hong Kong.
   
3. in my mind, super glue (also called AA glue) would be perfect if applied along the edges of the film to be rejoined. unfortunately, super glue has no adhesiveness when applied to my negative film! I know of no other glue which would be easy to apply and form a solid join within seconds. maybe somebody else knows of an appropriate glue.
   
4. tape can be used to join the film but two aberrations occur where the tape overlaps the photo image in the film:
   
   
   1. the edges of the tape are visible in the scan.
      
   2. the tape distorts and inflects the scanning light so that the overlapping image appears as if viewed through water. the Nikon person told me that Fuji also has some ultra-thin tape. I have not looked for it yet. it would be interesting to know if anyone else has tried scanning through ultra-thin adhesive tape with success.

so based on what I know so far, rejoining film for scanning in the 4000ED would be quite tedious. it would require applying thin strips of adhesive tape along the edges of the film just out of the image area (probably only one side to avoid making the film too thick to pass by the feeder rollers) and then accurately removing any tape over the perforations.

I'm not sure how strong the join would be. would it break inside the scanner? that's a question I cannot answer yet. since the joint-adjacent edges of the film are not taped, they might bend up or down. would these protruding film edges prevent smooth feeding within the scanner?

I tried joining two strips using a single length of adhesive tape along the joint-adjacent edges of the strips without covering the perforations. it worked but point 4 above meant that the resultant scan was not acceptable.

again; if anyone knows of a glue that would be easy to apply to the film edges, is strong and would form a solid join within seconds, I'd love to hear about it.


regards
Gregory