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I’ve been doing a lot of research over the last week and have found the method I’ll use, as described above. It sounds worth it compared to cutting/sanding and risking a jam. That would really frustrate me to throw away half a roll basically. thanks for your insight everyone! I’ll soon get some more film and supplies to begin. The excitement is unreal and the anticipation an emotional tsunami. after I begin this journey I’ll be able to travel along the DSLR film scanning route. Not presently thrilled, but eager since I don’t plan on making prints at home yet (space is quite limited).

Thanks. I was fortunate in that it already contained at roll of 620 and so I have two metal 620 spools at the ready. I see they are around $8-10 on eBay, but don’t think I’ll need any extra. The respooling doesn’t bother me much, but I don’t feel excited to deal with the backing paper in a changing bag nor taping it in the dark. I will try practicing it with the junk film that was in it (and became exposed during cleaning). I’ll probably attempt the cut and sand trick first on a roll of Fomapan. If it jams, it jams...and I’ll just have to respool. I’m not paying $15 for a roll of 8 exposure respools from B&H.

I was recently inspired to pursue what I started with by going back to film as a hobby (particularly, black & white film and processing). This is my journey. My story begins on the way home from Christmas visiting my wife's family. I saw a small antique shop in Salem, NJ. Turning to my wife I said, "Can we turn around? I'll bet they have what I'm looking for...you never know what you'll find." We turned around at a gas station and headed back. Once inside, we realized it wasn't the small, antique shop we thought. Instead, it was a 5,000 square-foot emporium of relics and consignments one could have only dreamed of so close to the sticks. Remembering how I elected to not buy a new-in-the-box Kodak Brownie Hawkeye Flash (complete with box, manual, and flash bulbs) a few years ago, I was determined to find any and every camera in the store. I lusted after a medium format classic. Perhaps a Brownie or a twin-lens reflex (TLR). Over the years I had found, and left behind, cameras from Rolleiflex to Agfa rangefinders out of ignorance and intimidation. This time was different. I wanted a new film camera and I wanted it simple. A value-oriented model, something I could shoot for myself. I wanted to compose an image rather than pose a subject -- and I wanted to do it with the silliest thing I could think of -- a camera that was exponentially cheaper than my DSLRs. Something to add contrast to my work. The first one I saw was a an open-bellows Polaroid Land Camera, dusty and grayed, lying on a shelf near the floor in the back corner (a place I often find older, less intuitive cameras, that most deem junk). However, this wasn't what I wanted. While a big fan of Polaroid, I wanted something other than a folder. I wanted something small, inconspicuous, and with waist-level viewfinding to lesson the dork appeal when taking a shot in a public area. People don't seem to pay attention to others looking down (at cell phones, usually). At least, not in the same way they do if you raise a camera to your head or extend an arm with a smartphone pointing around. On an adjacent shelf I found an oblong black case with a dirty brass zipper that faintly read "Kodak" along the top. I instantly grabbed it, excited to see what lay inside. Opening the flap revealed a half-empty case complete with original cardboard dividers and a small plastic looking box. I had found a Kodak Instamatic 104. "This may do," I thought to myself. I played with it for a moment before realizing it took 126 film. A quick look online revealed 126 was a dummy cartridge for 35mm, made for those who had trouble loading 35mm into manual point-and-shoots. With an adapter, it could still be used with modern film rolls. I placed it back on the shelf and kept moving. Ah! Around the corner, I found what I had been seeking: the infamous "glass case" near the counter. Full of the usual, pocket knives, lighters, various baubles and trinkets. At the bottom, though, this menagerie of retro-grade salvage, showed two old cameras, a Kodak flash kit in a box, and a M-12 kit. The two cameras appeared very similar. One was a 120 box camera, wrapped in green and "Made in Newark, NJ." The other a Kodak box camera. I made a mental note of this as the thought of owning a camera made not too far from where I found it decades later fascinated me. The $110 price-tag did not. I moved on. After searching the entire place with my wife, and realizing it had been an hour since we arrived, I happened across yet another camera mixed in with some old china and blown glass ornaments. It was an Ansco medium format rangefinder for $65. This looked great, but the price tag noted the dials were quite stiff or even stuck when attempting to use them. I wasn't ready to spend that amount on a camera which was probably going to need a cleaning that I probably couldn't get for it unless I shipped it off. Too bad, so sad. Heading back up to the front I inquired about the "glass case camera" again. This time, though...I asked to see one of them. Inside a somewhat dirty, yellow box was an exposure guide and my new best friend. Meet Kodak Six-20 Target Brownie. That's not the same as the half-dozen other Six-20 models. It's the art deco face with intersecting right-angles and the name written above the lens. $32, a pair of earrings for my wife, and the ever-evil sales tax was all it took to gain a wonderful Brownie, with box, untorn strap, in-tact mirrors, and a working shutter, bulb, and aperture tab. And all this, on my first try in 6 years, 500 miles from home. It's a Festivus miracle! ===== I hope you enjoy and I hope this is an "okay" place for the post. I'll have some questions and what-not about the Brownie, I'm sure. It's been a long time since I shot film and my first with such a challenging, yet unsophisticated camera. What are your thoughts on the Kodak Six-20 Target Brownie and in using it today?