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BABIES
This was one of my earliest web pages and has long been in need of updating. I have now divided everything about Babies into a range
of separate pages, leaving this page for just a few odd Babies and related stuff, and to guide you to the various Baby pages.
Pathé introduced the Baby projector in 1922; this is an early publicity shot. It went on to develop a wide range of accessories,
add-ons, attachments and gizmo's, plus a range of attractively-packed ancillary items. It was the birth of the "gear" hobby in
cine - the only way Pathé could continue to make money was to sell you more and more bits and pieces, and you can see some
of this paraphernalia on the Gear page. David Richardson has specialised in collecting and restoring all possible variants of the
Baby and its attachments, so I have set up a page just for his stuff - The Richardson Collection. Another avid collector is Willem
Hackman. I recently had the opportunity to take pix of his collection of Babies, so I have given him his own page, too -
The Hackman Collection. Other Baby-relevant pages are Baby Equipment, mainly concerned with equipment catalogues, and
Baby Film Catalogues, which does what it says on the tin. Before Pathescope Monthly was introduced, there was a series of leaflets initially
called Baby Cine Chat.
You will also find information about Babies in Gerald McKee's Classic Home Movie Projectors. You will find under French Bits a series of
articles about Pathé-Baby films. For a late and rather odd successor to the Baby, see the Coq D'Or. And finally an attempt to cash in on
the Baby name with a Pax-style projector in the 1950's.
Improving Light Output from a Baby
There have been quite a few expedients adopted to try to improve light output from the Pathé Baby projector. Better lamp, improved condenser lens,
and improved projection lens were the simple ones. Then came the extra bright lamphouse, with an altogether more powerful lamp and a much
bigger condenser. There was even a water-jacketed version of this. One problem with all this is that, so far, no written instructions have come
to hand, so the following may be subject to correction.
First we see the basic enlarged lamphouse. It just fits in place of the original lamphouse back cover, the extra weight being supported by a highly
sophisticated bit of spring with a fitment on it to go over the knurled knob that secures the lamphouse top.
Next is the water-cooled version, which is in two parts. The condenser is in the section with the water connectors showing; it seems to be this
that is cooled rather than the lamp in the back section. Nor does it appear that the water flowed thru; it just sat there, so far as we can tell.
There is no visible means of support here; there appears to have been a version with a sort of platform which fitted to the projector to act as a
support, shown in the catalogue illustration. These three are all from the existing Richardson Collection page on this site.
The last picture here is from the site www.fondation-jeromeseydoux-pathe.com. I was just going to put a link, but the link to the page with this pic
was so long it seemed daft. There are plenty more pix to see on the site. But just look at that resistance!
The problem with these, however, was that there was the obvious risk of burning the film when the mech stopped for a notch. The solution to
this was found in the shape of an attachment that automatically dimmed the light at each notch. The best image of this we (ie David Richardson,
who keeps finding these fascinating catalogue entries) have is quite poor, but for what it's worth, here it is, although it does at least tell us the
lamp is 8v 3 amp. With imagination, one can also see the resistance is like the one in the Jérôme Séydoux pic above.
The only logical solution to how this might be done had to involve the notching mechanism itself. Just in order to
rove it could be done, I made a quick lash-up from odd bits. This actually cuts the circuit when the film is running;
it would probably need to be the other way round in practice (ie make rather than break the circuit), but I had this
little contact unit..... But you can imagine a circuit where breaking it at this point would force the power supply
thru a dropper resistance and so achieve the desired effect. Incidentally, a pic 2m across with an audience of 100 is claimed.
If watts = volts x amps, this is still only 24w! (And let's not forget the Lodex lamphouse, which seems to have a 50w lamp.)
The device is basically a plate which takes the place of the little cover over the slider for the notching mechanism. It is held in place by the original
screw and by "wedging" up against the edge of the gate moulding. In this version, the paxolin block is free-floating, riding on the screw and held by the
folded "bracket" formed from the base plate. The paxolin block has a groove for the notching lever, which also helps to hold it in place, and a tongue
to separate the two contact strips when the film pushes the slider out of the side of the gate. It worked quite readily, so obviously it would be possible
to control the power of the lamp like this. One might use a micro-switch, for example, instead of contacts, and maybe a relay at the transformer/resistance
end to limit the current passing thru the switch arrangement.
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I have developed a lampholder for Babies, which does not require any alteration to the machine. Click on the link for details.
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These are some close-up views of a sound Baby. It is, I believe, the one written up in ACW after the war, although further modified. The real
guts of it are in that copper-coloured thing in front of the former take-up chamber. The film emerges from the gate, makes a very tight and
peculiar loop and runs under a flap on top of the copper thing, where the track is read.
The rest of the gubbins is about trying to smooth the pull thru of the film. When I saw it, the owner had mislaid the instructions
and I don't think it was running right. Nonetheless, it produced sound and, what was remarkable, the mechanism ran like a sewing
machine, purring along quietly. I don't suppose it is very kind to films, but it does show how good the original basic mech must have
been. You ask why on earth should anyone want to do it. You might just as well ask why men climb mountains. And as a piece of cine
history and a simply beautiful-looking piece of engineering, it is worthy of any true nerd's attention.
How's about this for the answer to the nerd's prayer? Sprockets for the sprocketless! I wonder why it never caught on?
Here are some pix of a strange baby. Someone seems to have made a very pro job of fitting a giant lamphouse, with a chrome back that seems to have been
specially made, as it has a rim. But it's very shallow, the socket on the back points outward and the whole thing seems to have failed actually to achieve
anything. (Memo to self; consider fitting vertical Xenon lamp.) Last pic is unconnected - a plug-in voltmeter labelled Pathé-Baby, courtesy Colin Loffler.
How's about a Giant Baby? Spotted on French eBay by Dave Richardson. It seems to be a prototype that never went further. It also has a special lamphouse with
bigger condenser and more powerful lamp; this was an attachment available for the normal-size Baby.
There were more conventional ways of getting more light. Lodex seemed to specialise in add-on bits; their Baby lamphouse used a 10v 5 amp lamp (I have
seen exciter lamps of this description). A small mechanical fan was driven by a belt from a doubled-up pulley on the main drive shaft. I passed one on to
I have a number of decrepit Babies and add-ons. Here are the results of a re-spray of the worst bits. The lamphouse is sprayed with heat-resisting paint -
the reason these are nearly always rusty is heat damage to the original paint. The other parts are sprayed with smooth Hammerite, covering parts as necessary
with masking tape.
I had a slightly bizarre set of issues with a Baby I was working on for a friend. I had seen this machine before, but it now had new problems. Only one film would go through - all others just sat in the gate. The mech was stiff, and only ran at all with the motor on max. As ever, the diagnosis is largely a matter of trial and error. Oil first, obviously, but it wasn't that. Then a washer at the front end of the shutter shaft to ensure the claw was emerging far enough, but it wasn't that. After much fruitless effort, I put it aside for a few hours. Returning to it later, I suddenly recalled something I had heard about the vital importance of a washer at the cam end of the shutter shaft. I had tended to regard this as something of an "old nerd's tale", but thought it was worth a try, and it worked.
During the earlier fruitless efforts, the motor had suddenly stopped responding to the speed control. so I took the bottom cover off the motor unit. One of the resistance fixing nuts, which connected to the resistance wire, had worked loose, and had moved along its thread to contact one of the incoming wires, so that was easy to fix. Finally, and this is where it gets a bit bizarre, I noticed that one of the nuts at the back of the motor was loose. This was on one of the threaded rods that serve to hold the motor together. As I was fixing this, I noticed that the motor steadily but quite distinctly speeded up as I tightened the nut, all the way to the point where I was reluctant to tighten further for fear of doing harm. There was little or no effect from tightening the other similar nut. I cannot even begin to understand what that is about - any ideas, please?
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Now another odd variant on the Baby theme. Ignore the Meccano (TM) pulley, tho' as it was fitted by grinding down the diameter of the shaft it means I shall
have to strip the entire thing to replace. It looks to have too much engineering to be just an amateur lash-up - look at that guide pulley for the lower arm - but
I have not seen its like before. There seems to be no provision for a brake of any kind, which I would have thought meant the take-up chewed up the film.
The motor, incidentally, is 240v, so I don't know how the electrics would have worked either. In the end, I decided to pass it to The Hackman Collection.
Now find out where you've been going wrong all these years.
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