Home 9.5 16 Multi-gauge 17.5 28 Pix Miscellany
THE JOINVILLE SERIES
Pathé finally turned out some near conventional equipment that was in a different class to anything that had gone before. Named after Pathé's Joinville works, this series included the Pax as sold in the UK, but also magnetic or dual-system sound machines, and 16mm versions, too. Terry Vacani contacted me after seeing this site in the very early days, and kindly provided photographs and loaned catalogues. Below is a copy of the Pax instructions (my copy).
Many people in the UK will be familiar with the Pax. It was infuriating, however, that a machine that should have set new standards for 9.5 was marred by a number of faults: a noisy motor, with governor speed control that was tricky to adjust, a badly-designed sound-reading set-up with that silly mirror, (although nowadays photodiodes offer a solution to this particular problem) and the abominable chute.
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Here also are Terry's pix of the real thing, and an improved model with a bigger amplifier. He tells me all his French machines have a steel main pulley, which carries the shutter. Only in the Pax as sold in the UK is there a Mazac pulley (see below). My own experience with the Pax is not very happy. I had a 9-reel feature, of which the three middle reels began to split from the sprockets towards the edge of the film. I blamed this on the excessive resistance offered by the chute arrangement. My theory runs like this. Most sound projectors rely on the weight and inertia of a flywheel, with the film held against it by rollers. This is a dynamic arrangement; once the system is in motion the actual pull on the sprocket holes is reduced to just what is needed to replace friction losses. In the Pax, the drag of the chute is a constant dead weight. Particularly if a film is slightly oversize, or very new, or splicey, or weak to start with, the constant full-force drag can be such as to damage the film. I do know that a number of people have replaced the chute with a more conventional arrangement. Anyway, by what was, even in the late 60's when this happened, a huge fluke of luck, I managed to acquire a spare copy of just those middle reels. I went back to the Super Vox, a machine which, along with the standard Vox, I have always found to be very kind to films and tolerant of damage.
Terry also has a 9.5 Marignan magnetic-sound-only machine, (pic 3 above) and a 16mm Cinéric magnetic machine; all of his machines are ones of which I am deeply envious. Note lack of chutes on magnetic machines. Also separate amplifiers for some.
ACW reviewed the Pax when it was introduced in the UK. Interestingly, they came down firmly on the side of the "wow" experienced with 9.5 sound prints being printed in rather than caused by the projector.
Below are some images from two instruction books Terry kindly loaned - I do love some of this artwork.
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Tony Saffrey has kindly provided pictures of the conversion work to his Pax some years ago.
The Pax has a belt drive from the motor to a pulley, on
which is mounted the shutter. The pulley in UK models is made from Mazak, and has a tendency to distort and ultimately disintegrate, just like the
flywheel in a Baby projector. The pulley runs in a narrow slot between lamphouse and
projector body, so any distortion causes it to start rubbing
. With the awkward
brush arrangement for the speed control contacts, it's all terribly difficult
and fiddly to get at. I had to do this once, and get a pulley made (courtesy
Buckingham Film Services). I made a drawing for making the new one. It all
worked out OK; somebody else might find this of use.
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These are pix I pinched from ebay, I think. Originally there was garden where there is now blue.
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The pic below, from David Richardson, is obviously a Joinville-type machine. It is labelled Baby and was apparently produced for a single year, 1953.
He knows my weakness for chitterling shots so has also sent inside views.
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Typically for someone with a butterfly mind like what I've got, I have flitted away onto the Pax I recently acquired (late 2010). It is showing its age and has
turned out to need far more work than at first sight. There are all sorts of problems. It has a little sticker saying 220v on the front panel, but I would
expect 110v and, indeed, Terry Vacani, who has loads, tells me he's never seen one this early (JP4 amp, as used in some later Voxes) that's 220v. So
either the label lies, or someone has done a very clever conversion, or this is the one that got away. Paul Schimmel is patiently advising me by email
in how to fix the amp up and, vitally, how to figure out if it's really 220v, which is not at all obvious.
Anyway, here are some pix for you.
You can see the state it's in. Fortunately, it's a French model, which means the main drive pulley, which carries the shutter, is steel rather than Mazac.
You will note that between pix 2 and 3 I have removed the motor. This is because it was in rubber mountings and the rubber has turned into a horrible
mess of semi-liquid gunk (which has obviously flowed out onto the base in part) and nasty, brittle remnants with no flexibility left. Yeeeeuuk.
I now have to figure out what it should be like (it's obvious someone has fiddled before) and find a way of duplicating it.
Pic 5 shows one of the other main detractions of the Pax. I've always found it a noisy machine (it's a brush motor, not induction), and from what I've seen here,
most of the noise comes from the speed control brushes. These fit into the three tubes in an insulated strip that you can see at the back of the lamphouse.
The brush springs are held in place by pushing the ends of the connecting wires thru small holes in the both sides of each tube and bending the end
over. Extremely primitive. The brushes bear on 3 concentric brass rings on the back of the motor fan, and the noise this makes seems to be a significant part
of the overall noise level. Memories of my first Pax say there is no adjustment of the springs that control the make and break contacts of the governor,
but this one does seem adjustable.
You can see that, over large areas, the paint finish has faded quite badly. I have found before that the use of white spirit actually makes this even worse,
giving the paint an opaque white bloom. However, I have experimented with the bit under the lamphouse by cleaning with white spirit and then giving
it a coat of Humbrol Satin 135 varnish. You can see the result in pic 4 on the flat platform. This seems a little encouraging, tho' time will tell. It is also
obvious that I need to do extensive touching-up. I did this once by mixing up a reasonably similar colour of Humbrol and giving the entire machine a thin
coat, by hand, using a small, stiff paintbrush, so as to make it all one colour. Working a thin coat in thoroughly avoids destroying the textured finish. I have
sent an email to Precision Paints, who provide authentic colour paints to (mainly) railway modellers in the hope they can help. But if anyone has found a
close colour match, I'd like to hear. You know, of course, that Vauxhall Brazil Brown is a virtually exact match for the paint on a 17.5 Home Talkie (thanks
to Ian Green, who put me onto this one).