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22nd April

I have had the brown, unaltered Pax on the bench, as I had never quite bottomed the problems I'd been having with the exciter lamp. There kept being smoke, melted wires and such. A discussion with Terry Vacani about Pax exciter lamps (the same lamp is available with the ring for use on the Pax and without) gave me ideas and led me to have a rummage; I found 4 or 5 lamps, two without rings. Anyway, to revert to my problem, the switch (there is a separate exciter switch) looked suspect and I decided I didn't like the way one of the connections was thru the projector body - not sure if this is normal or mine has gotten messed up.
So I changed the switch and made an adapter for one of the lamps without a ring, so I could get two isolated connections - see sketch. It's basically just a lump of Paxolin, with threaded holes for screws to secure the lamp AND provide a separate electrical connection. It sits where the ring would sit, with holes in the underside to match the locating pins that fit the holes in the ring. It's held in place by the sprung contact for the pin in the centre of the lamp base. It's probably a bit more difficult to change the exciter but we are no longer talking a consumer product - only the likes of us are ever gonna change one anyway, and it won't be very often, so what does it matter? It does also allow more scope for adjustment to get the lamp filament fully aligned with the sound optic. The results have been excellent - loads of volume and good quality sound. Thanks again to Paul Schimmel, who actually got the amp working for me.

15th April

I now have the aforementioned Super Vox and a Vox packaged up and awaiting collection. This selling stuff is hard work.

In the 1980's, it must have been, I acquired from Steve Siddaway (Hi Steve) a Krupp Ernemann Kinox machine. He explained to me the lack of various bits eg lamphouse, lens, shutter, handle etc and, being cocky, I suppose, I took it. I finally finished it to the point of usability a couple of years ago. Apart from all the bits just mentioned, I had to devise a way of securing the spool arms inside the case, 'cos otherwise they rattled around something cruel when transporting. I also found it necessary to fit a "stripper" plate below the intermittent to prevent the film looping back and catching the sprocket. Now I have finally gotten around to taking some pix. Note the lens is AWOL; the lid hits it when you try to put it on, so it ends up stored elsewhere. The lamphouse is, I hope, reasonably professional-looking; aficionados will note a generic likeness to the PathBaby lamphouse. As you can see, the lid survived less well than the machine (by doing its job, I suppose, and protecting the machine), but I have been reluctant to over-paint even the very faded name.

7th April

I am under pressure to get rid of some stuff, from senior management and from myself, as I have no room for any more and anyway shall never get all these projects completed. And I have run straight into my usual problem - I won't sell something unless I can give the buyer a fair view of what they are actually getting, whether film or equipment. I refuse to conceal flaws. Too old-fashioned, I guess.

The current case in point is a PathSuper Vox. You might recall it - it was originally cream then someone over-painted it, more badly than you would have thought possible, by hand, with black Hammerite. I actually had it working, completely as per original except for an added volume control. I removed the sound unit to strip it off and re-paint, as a start. And there it stopped. It took me two days just to find it ( at least 10 years later, this is), and found it was already re-painted and looking rather better than the rest, tho' not perfect. I then had to pick out the bits of paper with which I had stuffed various holes to stop them filling up with paint, and re-assemble. The flywheel didn't run right on its "bearings" (if you can dignify them with that term), so I tried a different front bearing, the one with the ball bearing, but that was too short and ended up with the flywheel in the wrong place for the pressure roller to sit properly. I am now fettling the original or maybe even replacing it, even if I have to make a new one!. And so it goes on. I found I had done a bit more dismantling than I had recalled - the claw and the back gate. I had long ago assembled parts to replace ones I thought unsatisfactory (eg the cracked flange and home-made cover for the PEC) but hadn't actually done it. The original gasket between lamphouse and mech had lost a piece, so I had to make a new one of those. It's no wonder I never sell anything, is it? But I shall persevere, and it shall be right and it shall be sold!

Bin chatting with Terry Vacani about my PM problems. He has one (16mm) and was able to give me some useful pointers. This pic marks a hole in the side of the mech THROUGH which one peers at the stroboscope (which, you may recall, I did not think I had), which is illuminated by a typically non-standard neon. Motor replacement is becoming more attractive! I had also remarked idly on the three-blade shutter. You need this for 16/18 fps, but I'm only really interested in sound and wondered about two blades. Terry pointed out that, in some Pax-style machines, the in-out cam was a raised track on the shutter. Not really possible to duplicate.

5th April

Returning to the ugly red box. The first job was to alter the tranny so that it had a standard euro plug mains input, and socket output for 24v. This means I can use it with any machine where I need 24v 250w. The projector end is more complex. It seemed to me that there might just be room behind the lamphouse. As you know, I am reluctant to make permanent alterations to projectors - this one has already seen too much of that. If you look at the middle pic below, you can see under the motor where holes have been drilled to accommodate screws to hold the box and to provide a route - several routes actually - for the wires. In this pic (another repeat), you can see two chromed brackets on the rear of the lamphouse. These were used to wrap the integral mains wire round, just like a domestic vacuum cleaner. This is not something I like, so it won't be used. This gave me the idea of using the holes left by removing the lower bracket as a non-permanent alteration. I got some thickish steel plate, and tapped holes in it to correspond to the two bracket support holes and a third hole, which can be seen in the same pic just referred to, under the end of the motor, which secures the curved cover round part of the back end of the motor. This hole is lower than the other two, so the steel plate is shaped a bit like a squashed, elongated "S".

Obviously, all this is much easier to understand wiv pix.

I basically started with the three connectors, which are part of the structure of the little box I have created. It was handy to have the third type of socket at the top, which I bought by accident some time ago. I inserted the little connector board under the motor because there are two separate mains feeds, the other being for the exciter lamp supply, and I didn't want more wires going to my box than I had to. I did the earths this way too. The box is secured to the projector by a screw thru the hole seen in the box's RH side flange with the curved top in pic 1, passing thru one of the original bracket holes. You can see also an angle piece fitted to the projector, using the other bracket hole. The side of the box fits behind the angle of this and is then secured by self-tap screws (pic 3). Finally, a sheet of paxolin is inserted behind the box before it is fixed to the machine and a curved cover piece conceals the first of the fixing screws. The paxolin is there because, in order to shoehorn everything into the limited space, I had to remove quite a bit of the pins on the various sockets, and I wanted a bit of extra insurance. I think the final result is not too bad in appearance, tho' I could do better if I did it again - as usual, I was just making it up as I went along.

The question now is, does it work? Well, the answer is no and I don't know. The pilot lights come on, but the motor does not react; I got sparks from the switches and two dead resistors at one point. I haven't bothered yet to check whether the other part of the socketry works, cos I need to make up the leads.

I half-expected the motor not to work, but at the moment I cannot tell whether:-

a) the motor needs rewinding, or at least another go with the soldering iron, or even replacing;

b) there is some other fault in the complex wiring, switching or old solder joints etc;

c) I have done something wrong or failed to understand some part of how it should work.

2nd April 2013

This PM machine has been fighting me. It is a very late machine, with much of the amplifier on pcbs. It also has push-button switches rather than sensible toggle switches. As you can see from the above pic, this contributes to an insanely complex set of wiring, compounded by provision for reverse running and switching the motor between 110 and 220v. When I got the machine, I think the motor was partially unmounted. This has enabled me to see just what a Heath Robinson affair it is. The motor is shown in the pix for 26th March. It has a long shaft on which are mounted a blower for the lamp and a pulley. The pulley is in two parts, spring-loaded on the shaft in such a way that, if the motor pulls against the shaft the pulley widens and presumably therefore reduces the drive speed. I gather from the instructions that the machine should be able to run at 16, 18 and 24fps, monitored by a stroboscope which in my case I have not got. I imagine the exact size of belt could be pretty important.

Anyway, the movement of the motor to take advantage of the variable pulley is achieved by the mechanism at the back of the motor. In the first pic above, you can see that the motor is held in place by a spring-loaded screw on the left, and by a triangular link attached to a thumb-wheel on the right. The motor is not held at any other point; the flange simply rubs on the rear of the back plate on which the motor is mounted. The triangular link is rigidly fixed to this flange, but is able to pivot round a screw, the end of which you can see half-way up the link. (It's easier to see in a 26th March pic). The thumbwheel has a pin on the back, which engages in a slot in the link. Turning the wheel moves the link in the slot in which its pivot is mounted and so moves the motor approximately towards or away from the drive pulley on the main mechanism shaft and so brings the variable pulley into play. The belt, of course, can only be fitted when the lamphouse is removed from the back of the main mech.

As if all this were not enough, there are about 8 very thin wires emerging from the motor, which have to double back and pass thru the hole below and left of the motor, in which there are already 2 other groups of wires. These wires are inevitably fragile, and some had been cut back and re-soldered before I got it, and I've had to do another. The wires then do not emerge as neatly from the motor. This matters because, as ever, clearances are tight and the blower rotates close to where the wires come out and there is a real risk it will rub and sever the wires. Every time the motor is moved, it puts strain on the wires and there is no guarantee they will all remain connected and functional once re-assembly is completed. It's quite possible I shall have to have the damned thing re-wound at huge expense.

The other thing I have been doing is trying to eliminate the ugly red box that had been tacked on to the rear. This carried a Bulgin input plug and a multi-pole connector which sent mains power to an external tranny AND brought the 24v feed back. There was not, apparently, space to do this within the projector envelope. In addition, the tranny was essentially dedicated to this one projector by virtue of the special plug, which was wired directly into the tranny. So I've been trying to develop a better way. More on this when I see if it actually works.

26th March

How time flies. Fair bit bin happening tho', so here are some heavily Pax-oriented pix for you.

The first two show a heavily-modified Pax bought off ebay. It has a B&H amp, of the type produced to replace valve amps in the old 620/630 series - see the controls at the front and the actual bit of a later B&H at the rear. It uses a 24v tachograph-controlled motor and has had the dreaded chute replaced. Gives vg sound.

Next 5 pix are a very late machine, with a third sprocket, permitting B&H-type smoothing for the sound. This, too, has been heavily modified. I seem to recall I was told it was a mag-only model to which optical sound has been added. I did wonder why therefore it had the lever thing on left of mag heads in the second pic, but I suspect threading for silent had to follow the sound path 'cos of the third sprocket - you can see how it was fitted in the next pic - so there had to be provision for this as well as for threading for mag. Note just above the flywheel the smoothed DC supply for the exciter, which uses a very odd lamp, I think 6v 221w and looking like a car bulb. We shall see. The rear view shows the "modern" switching arrangement using "piano" keys, which must have seemed a good idea at the time but to me seems insanely and unnecessarily complex. It even combines the 110v/220v changeover in the same unit. And it has provision for reverse running, too. What if it goes wrong? There is a great temptation to rip the whole lot out, forget the 110v bit and just have some simple toggle switches in a more sensible location. You can see that the motor, which I had to remove to sort out its decayed rubber mounts, seems quite small for its job.....

Note also in Pic 4 the area just to the right of the mag heads where I have cleaned with meths. It shows what age does if you don't fight it.

And finally, some shots of the Heurtier Superson, with added double band unit (John Cunningham) and a solid-state amp, tho' I think the wooden casing is going to have to go at some point. Previous management made quite neat units for optical sound to go where the mag heads fit - see 12th January below. It also hav huge arms and was used for Std 8mm with v. big spools - I got the films with it but have yet to run them.

8th March

About a month ago, I was telling you about the Super Vox I had been working on, the first real test, too, of my home-made motor end cap. I have had continuing problems with the mech being ridiculously stiff, and have spent a fair bit of time chasing down the cause. The side of the mech, right next to the motor, is a steel plate with brass bushes in which 3 of the main mech shafts are journalled. You can see two here; the third is the main drive shaft at the bottom. As soon as I put this side back on, having freed up the mech (I thought), it would seize up again.

I eventually found that the top shaft, carrying the top sprocket, was out of alignment and binding. A small enough thing, but a very big effect.

It was ok if the sprocket was not locked onto the shaft by the external nut on the opposite side - this tightened everything up. Without it, the shaft could find its own position more readily. I therefore had to drill and tap the sprocket for a grub screw as an alternate means of holding it on to the shaft.

An oddity with this machine became apparent when I cleaned the usual huge accumulation of dried grease from the claw and cam. Normally, the Vox cam is secured to the shaft by a left-hand thread screw. This one is more or less riveted on - ie it cannot be removed. This is part of the reason for the fact that the claw was flopping about all over the place. There was considerable in and out movement of the shaft, and nothing could be done without dismantling the mech. I had to remove the upper large gear seen here and adjust its position to remove the in and out problem. As for the amp, my friend Paul took pity on me and took it away to fix.

I have also been pottering with a Bolex G9/16. When I first tried it, zilch. So I cut off the capacitor across the mains, presumably intended as a suppressor and now obviously defunct, and then we had some movement from the motor, but very little. Next was to open up the back and take a toothbrush dipped in white spirit to all the aged, dried grease caked onto the various gears, and re-lubricate. This gave more movement and, left to warm up for a few minutes, the machine managed to reach a nearly respectable speed. I then moved on to do the same with the claw and cam, and finally got the sort of speed response one expects. Only problem then was the lamp. The switch is set up to be automatically tripped off by the motor switch when that is turned off. Only it didn't. Issa bit of a bugger to get at - you have to go from below and by removing the side switch panel, to get even very restricted access. I tried all sorts of lubrication, but nada. I eventually found that the lamp control, which is a large push-in button at the back of the machine, was binding. The button passes thru a collar; the button is plastic and had distorted just enough to banjax the operation. Instead of springing out once pushed in, the button stayed in and provided enough extra resistance to stop the interlock operating. I just bored out the collar a bit and smooth operation was restored.

3rd March

Pat Moules has come up with some literature about French Sound film on 9.5, of which I have

never even heard. In some ways, they are much more like some of the Pathescope Monthlies

than is Cinema Chez Soi.

I have only completely tarted up the covers for 3 of the issues, which was pretty hard and

prolonged work, but I have done one issue in full for you.

Having mentioned the Vox chain drive in talking about the Super Vox on 1st February, I thort I better

give you some pix. Well, two versions of the same pic, actually.

I have also stitched the two mechs together. It doesn't look to me Pathhad to make any significant

change to the main mech casting when they changed the gearing.

1st February

I've also been working on a Super Vox where the mech was stiff for no apparent reason. This is

an unusual machine in that it retains the original amp, modified only by the addition of a volume

control, and the original lamp. I'd quite like to have one in original condition. I also realised that,

despite the Super Vox being one of my all-time favrites, I have not showed you pix of its innards.

This machine has obviously had some fairly crude over-painting done at some time, but it seems

also to have had a defective paint job on the main mech casting. The paint finish on a Vox is

particularly tough to keep clean; it always seems to be absorbing oil and feeling grimy. In cleaning

up and de-greasing, it became apparent that the paint on the mech casting was all just going to flake

off, so I removed the lot (externally, at least). Hence these rather naked-looking pix.

You can see from the last 2 pix that the disintegrating paint extends to the inside, which is why I believe

it must have been an original fault rather than the result of later intervention. The question now is just

what to do about the paint finish.

In pic 1, I have removed everything except the front part of the lamphouse, which carries the rear, sprung

gate, and the two sprockets. The lower because I am reluctant to meddle; the big lower gear is secured by

a pin. These are, in my experience, hard to remove and would risk bending the main shaft further than it

probably already is. I think this is a major weakness of the design - there is too much shaft and no end

bearing beyond the motor drive gears to help take the load. The upper sprocket is still there because I

have never yet succeeded in removing one from any Vox or Super Vox - I have found that nut impossible

to shift.

Pix 3 and 4 still do not really show the full story - I shall have to dig out a mech I can strip down a bit more.

Anyway, working from the big gear at the bottom; this is on the main drive shaft which is turned by the

motor. Above it is a beefy gear which is on the camshaft for the claw. Size and weight means that it must

have a degree of flywheel function. This is not directly driven by the lower big gear but via an intermediary

gear which can just be seen peeking out from below it (see pix below). This intermediary engages with a

very small diameter gear which is an integral part of the rear of the cam/flywheel gear.

The next stage of the drive is also obscured here - I really will have to do more pix, but obviously connects

to the horizontal shutter shaft and on to the worm drive to the top sprocket. Presumably, the purpose

of these gear trains is to speed up the camshaft to 8 times the speed of the main drive shaft (which

carries the lower, 8-tooth sprocket, and then to slow it down again by the same factor to drive the top

sprocket. Interestingly, the original 200w Vox had a chain drive between the sprockets, which seems a much

easier solution. So presumably it was found to present problems?

Here are some more pix, of a second Super Vox mech, on which I have loosened the camshaft gear. In pic one

you see the sort of state some machines are allowed to get into (you should have seen the claw when I

removed it from here). You don't want to see the appalling gunge I excavated from beneath the cam/flywheel

gear and the big lower gear (I decided to remove this as well while I was at it), but if you DID see it, you

would not want it in your projector. Pic 2 is because I had already removed the shutter on the first mech

before taking the pictures above).

When I first cleaned this second mech up to photograph for you, the drive between the big lower gear and

the next, intermediate gear, was rough - it semi-jammed several times on each rotation. Now, as you may

have noticed, PathFrance never used a straight-cut gear where a helical gear would do. Witness the

drive to the shutter in the PathBaby. It is much more difficult to clean these - not least because old

grease and oil, dried out and combined with the grit, dust, moisture and general groo that accumulates

over time can form surprisingly hard and tenacious deposits. These are, of course, even harder to

remove from slidey, helicoidal gears than from straight ones. Even a toothbrush won't hack it and I am

often driven to clear it out groove by groove with a screwdriver tip. When I had done this to the

cam/flywheel gear and the intermediary, everything was immediately much smoother. I wonder in

retrospect if this contributed to the problem of stiffness on the first mech. What I am not clear about is

why such complex and hard-to-make gears were so extensively used. Compactness may be part of it, and

it may actually not be feasible to do right-angle turns without it. But even between the big lower gear

and the intermediate gear, the drive has a modest helical component. Perhaps it is noise, or wear? Is

there an engineer in the house? Anyway, back to the first mech.

The problem was that, after I had cleaned up and lubricated, I could find no cause for the first mech to be stiff.

I think, however, that I spotted something when I re-attached the side plate. There is a clue in the locating

pin, just visible in profile below the motor shaft in pic 2 and also in pic 3 of the first set of pix. You may

also just be able to see a second on the support pillar immediately above the cam/flywheel gear - it is

somewhat clearer in the second set of pix. My experience is that such pins are only used when great

accuracy of fitting is required, and I did indeed find that the precise positioning of the side plate had a

considerable effect on the degree of stiffness of the mech. I suspect that bearing wear - the two

sprocket shafts and the cam/flywheel gear all have bearings which are a part of the side plate -

and imprecision of fixing screw location combine to allow the mech to "bind" and so become stiff. By trial-

and-error shifting of the side , I was able to get a free-running mech.

However, this was far from all. The first "service" on a projector that has not been touched for many years

inevitably reveals all sorts of problems, quite apart from the paint job. Removing the amp revealed that

the insulation on the wires feeding the amp (carrying 110v) had gone brittle and disintegrated. Also, at

some stage the motor switch must have failed and been replaced by a very non-original toggle switch.

I had one spare, but it meant more re-wiring. The motor capacitor had split open and had to be replaced.

The lamp wires literally cracked when I removed the lamphouse and so caused them to bend, so they too

had to go.

I had also found that some of the contacts on the main terminal strip in the base were defective. These

are brass strips with two screw connectors, let into the bakelite of the body of the terminal strip, so as

to be flush with the surface. Two of these strips had popped out of their slots and were vaguely

floating above. I imagine the very solid, thick brass wires of the lamp feed from the tranny were the

cause. It is impossible to do much with Vox wiring without loosening this terminal strip and bending it

against the resistance of all the solid-core wires, which I assume had caused the problem (which I also

have on another machine) when bending the terminal strip back into place. However, I found a

solution in the shape of a toolmaker's clamp, which grips with two flat surfaces. By gently and

progressively tightening the clamp, the brass strips were persuaded back into place.

Having replaced various wires as described, I allowed myself to believe that the motor wires were OK.

This motor had four wires, in two pairs of the braided cotton-covered wire so often used at one time.

Each pair was twisted together. Now, the problem with the Super Vox motor wires is that they have to go

down a hole immediately below the motor, then find their way past the back of the tranny - their route

is not visible from above or below. Then they have to be pulled thru the tangle of wires connecting to

the terminal strip to get to their own connections. This with a motor where the wires date from over 70

years ago. As it happened, the motor worked fine when I fired it up. There was just this wee problem

of the 110v reading on my multi-meter between the body of the projector and earth, identified by sparking

of the earth connection and tripping of the power supply. When I removed the motor once more and examined

the wires at the point where they enter the machine, the insulation had clearly deteriorated. This is a

bit tricky, as it is only an inch or less from where the wires disappear inside the motor casing, and the

insulation is not exactly in prime condition - it is perfectly possible that the perishing of the insulation

could extend into the motor and, if the wires are disturbed too much, would be impossible to repair

without a complete re-wind. I stripped and cleaned up wires - without treatment, these old wires will

not take solder - soldered on new wires and added plenty of heat-shrink sleeving to tie the new wires

to the old and provide additional mechanical support to the joins. Fortunately this worked, but I fear

this issue will be an increasing source of problems for the future.

27th January

I have not been completely open with you about what I have been doing, cos it didn't get anywhere.

However, here are a couple of my recent activities.

I have a Ditmar, which I was thinking of selling on. As usual, I checked it out first and found that the

motor was being very lethargic, barely reaching projection speed even at max volume. Now, the

Ditmar is a multi-voltage machine; the base has a pair of screw terminals of the usual type for this.

Now, as I understand it, these two screws adjust the voltage for the motor and the pilot lights only;

the lamp has to be the right voltage for the supply. So the motor should work fine on either 110v or

230v, so long as these screws are in the correct position. I tried first with 110v, and got the weak

motor; then I tried 230v and got a better motor but also, after a minute or two, some smoke and you

can see in pic 2 that those two coil things seem a bit cooked on the left of the pic. I assumed these

were suppressor things (there is a second resistance like the motor speed control that I assume

does the voltage) and, being cooked, could be discarded. But then the motor didn't work at all, and

I have been waiting to be fit enough to clamber up into my garage loft to see if there is anything

helpful among my Ditmar spares.

I have various Vox and Super Vox machines, some more or less complete, others just for spares,

and I recently turned my attention to one of these. It has been awaiting attention, as mazac

distortion of the motor end cap was causing the motor to labour and grind.

As you can see, there has already been one repair, to the lower locating lugs, but there was also a

crack across the top of the motor, clearly the source of the problem. The piece affected fell out

when I opened up the motor. However, several years ago I had a Super Vox motor rewound, and

had fitted it with the new aluminium end cap I had previously made. The obvious thing was to try

this in place of the busted motor. First, I found that I had not actually got the gear bracket quite

correctly placed - there was no room to get the worm on - so I had to do some stretching of the

bearing holes where the shaft carrying the horizontal gear rides. These are separate items, held

in place by a nut, so there is scope to deal with enlarged holes and still get a good fit.

Alas, the motor would not turn the mech. Fine in neutral, but with a load, even manual assist was

no help. Until I cranked the voltage up to 180 or more, that is, but then I got a bit of smoke so

backed off hurriedly. I don't know enough to figure this, so I have sent the motor back to the

rewinders to find out what gives. If by some chance it was erroneously rewound for 240v, this

would be fine as the projector itself has been wired for 230v. Which is another oddity -

the motor is fed with 230v and uses a 4uF capacitor. Now I am used to 110v and 10uF and I do

not understand this. Has this motor been wound for 230v? If there is anyone out there who

knows this machine and/or worked on it in the past, any guidance would be gratefully received.

The sound on this machine was low when I first tested it, so I thought I would go thru and replace

all the capacitors, as usual. This improved the sound no end - first I got a loud hum, which did not

vary with the amp controls, then I managed to improve things by getting the hum to vary with

one of the controls. As you know, I am no good with electronics so this is waiting 'til I can find a

repairer. I did learn something new, however. I had not previously come across colour-coded

capacitors; this has 2.

12th January

I recently acquired a Heurtier Superson - this is the mag-sound-only model that looks like the silent

machine with a base, and is not to be confused with the big Universal, tho' it uses the same amp.

This machine has, however, been considerably modified; it has 2000' spool arms and a double-band

unit on the side. This is of passing interest to me; much more interesting is a little gizmo that doesn't

alter the projector. It is a cunningly-designed unit that fits in place of one of the normal mag heads,

but incorporates an exciter lamp, a sound reader, a sound diode and a smoothing gate, enabling the

showing of films with optical sound tracks. There are two of these units, for 16mm and 9.5 but the

beauty of the 9.5 one is that it is constructed so that the track is on the correct side, and it even

has an adjuster for variations in track location. Here are some pix of the 9.5 version.

Pic 1 is the unit as it looks on the machine. Pic 2 is with the cover removed and 3 shows the spring-

loaded gate held open (the Bolex sound version of the G3 has a similar arrangement). Finally, a view

from below. The two connections on the side of the unit are a DIN plug which feeds power to the

exciter and carries a signal back to the amp, and a mini jack socket for line out.

The unit looks a little crude, but that's the way with the first model - it's easy to see how it could be

made to look much more "professional". It actually functions well, tho' I have only made very limited

tests so far.

As to the material, I know not about the first; the film is French. The second, however, I

believe to be compounded of acetone, glacial acetic acid, maybe a few frames of (emulsion-free)

film and, oddly, some Nu-Skin. For those unfamiliar, this seems to be basically superglue for

application to minor cuts etc, instead of plasters (since modern plasters do not stick at all, this

mite be a good idea). I suspect the French stuff mite have been superglue.

I have heard vaguely of the use of this technique by cinema operators, and I should be grateful

for any information anyone can give on use, techniques or material. I have in mind in particular

17.5mm film, which is often plagued by chads.

This is about the only positive thing to come out of all my film checking. The appalling state of

9.5 films resulting from user abuse continues to depress, but I have found other issues. At one

period, Pathescope must have been using an inferior stock, because I often see examples of

films where, instead of the downwards rip of a claw-torn sprocket, we get almost horizontal

splits from the corner. I have had maybe a dozen 9.5 feature films with this problem over the

last few years. Unless it's in the very early stages, the only option is dumping - it can get so

bad the film just splits on projection or even when it is handled. I hate throwing things away like

that. I've also lost two features to vinegar syndrome, which I had thought did not happen with 9.5.

What happens, apart from the smell, is that the film goes all floopy, doesn't stay flat during

winding and is almost impossible to rewind successfully - you get that slack effect where the

coils are loose and you can't get all the film on the reel.

9th January

I have recently come across two examples of a film repair technique of which I had heard but

had no experience. It is, simply, the use of film cement or some other form of glue to reinforce

sprockets that are torn and often have bits likely to fall out at any time - "chads". Both of the

examples were with 9.5 sound, but I would think it would apply to other gauges, with the

advantage of not having the same risk of on-screen appearance you get with 9.5.

Both examples seem to have been successful, as the films projected without a hitch. In one,

the repairs were relatively short in length and also small and neat, and no unsuspecting viewer

would be likely to notice. The second, a copy of the Popeye cartoon "Dizzy Divers", was far

more extensively damaged and the repairs were perhaps a little less neat. There was obvious

on-screen appearance, much of it due to the extent of the original damage - in places splits

emanating from the sprockets curved inwards and more or less met in the centre of the frame.