Home 9.5 16 Multi-gauge 17.5 28 Pix Miscellany
Bolex
Here, courtesy the PPT, is a very early Bolex of the PA/DA shape. This is a Model C, 16mm only. Note the ornate logos,
the pushmi-pullyu still frame device, the switch (far more use than the direction change lever we got later), the one-piece
lamphouse with simple pin fixing and ornate top. I think that, with the front adjuster leg out of the way, the lamphouse
will swing open, maybe to keep light from the film until you were ready. Less obviously, there are no moveable sprocket
retainers. The rollers are held in place with nuts, hidden behind a large gearwheel inside the mech. Which means that to
clean them, I had to remove the pin on the sprocket shaft, unscrew the grub-screw in the sprocket, remove the lamphouse
and the back of the projector and slide out the large gear wheel on the other end of the sprocket shaft. It now runs
bootiful, tho'. I also noted that it has a mesh filter much like the heat filter on later machines, which operates centrifugally.
The shutter (2
blades only) is much thicker metal than the later paper-thin jobbies. The rewind
handle is removable but,
remarkably, has survived.
Bolex made a number of machines for more than one gauge; the
DA/PA type, which could also show 9.5 notched films, and the "G" series in
numerous guises. This Bolex PA has been adapted to halogen lighting, 900ft spool
capacity and separate switching for lamp and motor. These machines, and the
dual-gauge DA, give about as good as you can get from notched films, but you do
have to manually re-start after each notch, whereas the Baby and Lux do this
automatically.
Can
a boy have too many Bolex DA's? The problem is, only one of them has the 9.5
parts, so if anyone has some spare...... I never quite took to the G3 (or its
8/16 and 9/16 dual-gauge stablemates),
despite the plethora of bits and pieces, but in good condition it could be an
attractive machine. This is a posh one with a strobe disc on the top sprocket.
I recently found that I had a spare 9.5 gate, sprocket and one spool spindle for a Bolex DA. I managed to machine a spindle from a spare G3 one, which is very similar but longer. The gate was more problematic. I had not previously realised that the 9.5 gate differs as between the PA and the DA. The PA slots to clear the 16mm claw are quite a bit lower down than those for the DA. The gate I had found was a PA so I had to lengthen the slots. For some reason, it didn't have the cut-out in the side of the gate to allow the notching mechanism to engage, so I had to machine this, too. Why is nothing ever simple?
Here are a couple of sets of instructions for this range of machines.
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I
have just come across a G3 variant that hadn't really caught my attention before.
This has a special speed control that appears to allow a steady speed
to be
maintained at anything from under 16fps to 24fps
- a variable fixed speed! The control is on the
front
of the mechanism, and connects to a complex set of make/break contacts,
cams and coils. These are in turn linked to a resistance in the base. See pix;
nb the two small coils are on a board I have detached from its mount to see
behind it. In the first pic, the speed control knob can be seen top left - you
can just read the 24. This links to some contacts (just below and to the right
of the knob) which are also connected to an arm with a spring, seen near the
shutter. This arm has a pad which rides on a hexagonal section of the main
vertical drive shaft, giving an oscillating motion. Below this, with the green
wire, is another set of contacts linked to the standard Bolex still picture
mechanism lever on the front side of the machine. (The knob lower left is the
gauge-changer).
Now, this may all sound a bit confusing; well it is to me - frankly, I can't make head nor tail of it, so it was back to tried and tested methods, viz "poking about a bit to see what happens". The speed control wasn't working when I got the machine, it just ran flat out and the speed control did nothing. I cleaned the contacts as best I could. The only other thing I could think of that I understood at all was to replace the condenser/capacitor, which can be seen mounted just below the coils. People who understand such things tell me condensers can fade with time, so for the sake of about £2.35 at Maplin for an 0.1 muF capacitor, I replaced it and Lo! the projector worked fine. I have run several films thru now and I am much more impressed with it than with previous G3s, good steady picture and nice constant speed. The only snag is the tilt mechanism knob on the front is placed in just the right spot to make it difficult, but not quite impossible, to get a 900' reel onto the spool arm. 1000ft wouldn't fit at all; it hits the main base of the machine. As to why such a machine was made, I read in Andrew Alden's Bolex History that Bolex themselves, as well as other companies, made add-on sound units for silent G3s, so it might be connected to that.
I could not resist the much rarer sound version of the Bolex G3. Take a silent G3. Then add a huge amplifier and a large sound unit. You get......................................
.............this.
Note the quiet but determined emphasis (this being December 1939) on Swiss origin. And, a point I confess had not
really registered with me before, the ability to show DIN films. Between the two small pix at the bottom of the ad
is a particularly interesting reference to converting any Type G machine to sound with an add-on unit. This seems
(particularly when taken with the transparently bolt-on design of the sound head) to make nonsense of the claim
in the review, emphasised rather too much for conviction, that the whole thing was designed like that in the
first place. Pull the other one. I wonder, too, if Bolex were pushed into producing at least the conversion unit
by the success of a proprietary model - this is what happened to Specto with the dual 9.5/16 conversion by
Cinesmith, or with Pathescope and the Aurator for the Gem.
As well as the machine itself, you get a splendid box of bits which, in addition to the usual G3 bits, has large sound sprockets,
an extra picture gate for 9.5 sound, and sound gates - dinky things just like picture gates - for the optical sound. There is
not usually room in the box for everything, one set of parts being on the machine. The exciter lamp is a festoon type,
ie a bit like fuse. If you look at the close-up, the sound optics are in the right-angle thing on the sound unit. As far as I
know, there is no sound slit; an image of the exciter lamp filament is used. After passing through the film, the sound light
is turned through a right angle by a prism and fed down a tube to a photocell in the amplifier. The sound speed
appears to be controlled by a mechanical governor behind the lamphouse. This is what makes the machine so ferociously noisy - I think it's about the worst I've ever heard. The whole set-up comes in two large cases, the second holding amp, speaker and various transformer thingies to do with the sound (note grasp of technical features). Apart from being very heavy and noisy, the addition of the amp underneath brings the projector much higher than normal. Hard to know how well it would have performed in its heyday, but I find it irresistible and aim to get it fully working - one day.
The most interesting point about this machine in some ways is that it was on the market by about the middle of 1939, if this
piece from Home Movies and Home Talkies is to be believed. Not sure they saw the same machine as I have!
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Here are some extracts from the instructions for the really strange Bolex Multimatic. Not a multi-gauge machine, but one that shows a succession of up to six short films automatically.
The films are loaded into special cassettes which go into a chute on the machine. It then shows each in turn, automatically rewinding each film while the next is being shown.
It seems to work, too, but why it is better than just using a splicer, and what sort of market it was aimed at, is a mystery to me. I bet it scratches if you use it a lot, too.
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The M8/M8R (I'm not really sure of the difference) is one of the best Standard 8 projectors. Here are a leaflet and the instructions.
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The Bolex PIII is apparently quite a rare 9.5 machine. There have been rumours of a notched version, which would have been a great boon. Any sightings?. Bob Andrews loaned
me a somewhat foxed copy of the instructions, which I have tarted up and reproduce below.
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A really gorgeous-looking 8mm machine is the Bolex M8R. It has
been
described as possibly the best Standard 8 projector. For some obscure
reason, Bolex did a version of this in that horrid, drab olive green. Mad.
Right is the later 18.5, with it's special low-speed capability.
Anyone interested in Bolex should see Andrew Alden's books (see Books under Miscellany.)