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REPORTING

When I am working on films, and sometimes projectors, I try to keep notes, either for my own records or to pass on to the owner. Here are some examples.

These are some notes I wrote for a friend some of whose 28mm films I repaired. I also made a new lamphouse for his KOK to replace a horrid plank and metal-can device with a car headlamp that someone had fitted.

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I shall never remember to tell you all the stuff I should so am writing it down as I go. Please excuse the inevitable bits you know.

I have only checked some of the films in detail – Peter did most of them, leaving the worst to me. There are a number of problems to report.

Rusty spools. I believe this is due to acid products from film decay rather than normal rust – I’ve met a lot of it with my own reels. Some of the worst spools I have sanded, treated with rust converter and given a coat of paint. The rust is thick and lumpy and this is just a non-cosmetic palliative to extend spool life a bit. One I have rust-treated but didn’t feel should be used. I seem to have ended up with a spare spool by dint of leaving one or two films on cores.

Two reels had Mazak cores, which had simply broken, leaving no lugs to mesh with the dog on the spool spindles. I have re-cored them, one with solid aluminium and one with a small alu core extended by normal plastic cores (2 x 16mm or a cut down 35). This latter arrangement is lighter. I think the original 28mm spool centres are just too small (about 1.25 inch) and cause an awful lot of problems, so I go for the 2 inch minimum as used for 35mm.

As discussed, I have replaced the worst of the cans with newer ones. Can I ask you please to throw away all that horrible surgical-type tape I found on cans and used to tape film down on the reel. It’s horrible and sticky and leaves a residue on the film. I have written titles on the cans instead.

Can I also ask you NEVER to tuck the end of the film into the spool core or tape it down, except possibly with a small piece of preferably used proper splicing tape – it is always possible to spool up by friction, especially with 28 where you can get your whole hand down to the core to hold the film. Tucked-in ends buckle and then get shredded by the projector and leader rapidly disappears. I am sure I am teaching my grandmother here.

On the subject of leader, it is like gold dust, partly for the aforementioned reason. What I do therefore is to use a length of 35mm trimmed to 28 at the head end, to cover the bit between lower sprocket and spool when threading. This minimises the need for real leader and allows some re-deployment from any film that by some miracle has retained a good long leader. At worst, the fake leader minimises the amount of title not seen because it has had to serve as leader, and protects the head from any further erosion. At the tail, I use a grudging few inches just to protect the end – see above once more. I’m afraid even these measures have not been enough as your films usually have very little leader.

As you may know, I had a 28mm tape splicer made, at a cost that still makes me wince. But it would be impossible to salvage most of the 28mm films I have seen without it. I hate the destruction of frames caused by cement splicing – that’s for joining film, not for repair. What I am trying to do is make projectable as much film as I can with the minimum loss of frames and of course make my attentions reversible as far as possible should a better way become available. Sometimes of course you have to cut, to protect the rest of the film. Even the slightest defect can catch in the projector and greatly extend existing damage (sorry, grandma). And how some of the damage gets done is a mystery to me.

The main problems I meet are

- splices. Some are so dreadful they can only be cut out. The vast majority have defects, so all have to be checked. Frequently the corners (or more) have dried out and started to lift; extra cement can usually be insinuated. This is no use where the film is splitting, usually due to over-enthusiastic scraping off of emulsion having thinned the film exactly at the join, and tape reinforcement is needed. This can usually be done at the edges with little or no sign on screen. Where the splice is just peeling apart, I just overlay it with tape both sides. I found in a Kodak book that overlap splicing with tape is perfectly acceptable and it seems to work fine, so even new splices I make are overlapped. In any event, you can’t make a butt joint with 28mm where it is shrunken and warped – you need a good overlap to keep it flat. A KOK might not agree.

The worst splices are ageing sellotape ones. The sticky mess is most unpleasant and persistent and has to be removed with film cleaner. I should mention that some parts of some films have been cleaned with Cresclean, one of the proprietary film treatment fluids. This is only at head or tail where the worst dirt and dryness is. Some cans have a tissue soaked in Cresclean in the hope it might work a bit like the old humidifier blotting paper.

- sprocket damage. I have one film where all the non frame-line sprockets have become singles thru elongation, though it is hard to imagine how this could have been achieved. The film runs fine tho’. The problem comes when the frame line or what I call working sprockets are affected. Where there is a split with a "chad" remaining in place a strong repair can be made by re-inforcing with tape from the edge, without it showing on projection, or not much. But if one or both sides has an enlarged hole, while it can be covered with tape and re-punched, the repair is inherently less strong. Somewhat to my surprise, It’s Him, which had a fair bit of this sort of damage, did project OK. I can only think the problems and damage are caused by loss of loop, especially the top loop. A problem specific to the KOK is that the claw is completely unforgiving because of the ratchet-type arrangement. If the top loop shortens, there is no give or springing in the claw – if the film don’t move when pulled, it gets shredded. I suspect this is also implicated in the kind of damage seen in Train 552, where all the sprockets have serious splits. In my experience, 28mm sprockets don’t normally tend to split in the way, say, 9.5mm does, possibly because the two rows of sprockets inherently place less strain on the film.

- edge splitting. A very thin strip of tape outside the sprockets can work for splits with no loss of material. Where part of the film has gone, or the split extends inside the sprocket, a bigger repair across the sprocket holes is needed, some of which will show on the screen. Sometimes splits have been previously widened out into a V à la 35mm. My view is these are bound to catch or split (indeed I have seen an example where the split started at the V), so I tape over. There seems to be quite a bit of edge scraping with 28, where the film is roughened to a greater or lesser extent, with the risk it will catch at some point and rip the film.

All of the above is based on experience with my Premier, with its intermittent sprocket. A KOK, where the claw doesn’t give that extra bit of wrap to take some of the load from the working sprocket, may not work as well. Brian Giles has told me the KOK claw is very sensitive to any obstruction in the holes, eg a hole not cleanly punched. This is presumably because only spring pressure is driving the claw into the hole. I have no direct experience of this, so all I can do is counsel extra care on a KOK as I can only be confident that my repairs work on a Premier.

It’s Him/ That’s Him (the two reels have different main titles)

A real marathon – 8 hours, maybe more. There’s a huge amount of damage to the film. Many of the sprocket holes are elongated and quite a bit of this affects the working sprockets. I’ve reinforced with tape, but although it went thru my Premier, who knows with a KOK?

Another marathon. This one was in pieces on the reel. I’m not sure if even the joined-up bits were in the right order. A great deal of damage and literally scores and scores of splices, every last one of which required some attention. Same problem of damage to working sprockets. Whether the film as I have reassembled it is in the right order I know not.

Lot of sprocket damage, but mainly the non-working ones. Separately you have another piece of Serpentine. It may be the two could be consolidated with benefit as they don’t seem identical – needs an editor!

Tatty, fair bit of edge scraping and some damage to working sprockets. Had to cut some frames where there were diagonal tears over several inches. (On projection this proved to be one of the best trick films I have yet seen on 28. Joined on after is another, shorter trick film, equally good but untitled.)

Generally good but with a bit of sprocket damage (incl working ones) near each end. No end title.

Generally good. Interestingly, I can’t seem to find this film in any catalogue so far.

Another marathon. Lots of sprocket damage, including elongation of working ones and many chads. Towards the end the film needed strengthening at nearly every frame. No end title. A previous repair effort used sellotape to strengthen sprocket holes on the single sprocket side only. Couldn’t face removing them all, just where they weren’t in the right place to do the job.

Generally good.

The damage beggars belief. I did quite a lot, especially near the end where nearly every sprocket hole is split, but to do it all would be a labour of Hercules. Anyway, the film is so brittle it would probably be of little use. I don’t think it’s projectable – likely to rip at almost any point – and only the owner should try. Great shame – would love to have seen it. There was an odd couple of frames loose in the can, which are still there as I didn’t find where they came from.

I nearly gave up on this one, but a skim thru showed the second half was much better, even good in parts, so I persisted. Bit of a marathon again, tho’. Lot of frame line sprocket elongation (both sides at once), where taping is only going to have limited effect. I couldn’t face removing all the original sellotape repairs made to the single-sprocket side. It hasn’t been shown after repair, as I have this title and Peter filmed it some time ago.

Apart from a single patch of bad damage near the start, this reel is in good shape throughout, tho’ The Board has no title. As BW is the most common film I have come across among UK collectors, I took the unusual step of cutting out the worst bit, so as to give at least one film in good shape. I’ve left the bit in the can for you to see. The only possible problem is if the KOK do not like my splices and other repairs. If you ever get your hands on a cement splicer, my tape joins are sufficiently overlapped that it should be possible to remake them with care. This reel has not been shown either; same reason as above.

Another film with quite a lot of damage, including elongated working sprockets, which have been taped. No head or end title.

In good condition except there are a fair few splices, all of which had partly dried out despite liberal use of cement when they were first made. You can tell it was liberal by the clever way it has spread to the next layer of film, or even the one after.

I now know where the end of my tether is; it’s about two thirds of the way thru Ivory Hunters. The titles have most of the working sprockets elongated, and this kind of damage recurs sporadically thru the film, disappearing just long enough to lull one into a false sense of security, then leaping out again. It’s not as though it’s a good film; I do have a copy but when I ran it I found it most distasteful as it’s just killing an elephant for "fun". Yeuch! So I stopped. As most of the problem is on the single-sprocket side, anyone who thought it worthwhile could do it themselves.

The Aspirator/Apache Dances (Parisian kind)

I did check and repair this one quite extensively, but I have forgotten the details as it was before I started this note.

Most of them have been thru my projector, altho’ this ain’t much of a guarantee for the future. I suspect that there is still a lot of work to be done to bring them fully up to scratch, but see Ivory Hunters above. I haven’t checked or repaired them in detail, tho’ Peter gave them a quick skim.

Apart from the missing lamphouse, it seems to be in good order. The dynamo works; at least it goes round as a motor when you give it a DC supply. The original lamp was, according to someone who has some, 6.5v 0.7amp. Odd, and not enough to provide useful light by today’s standards. I did consider using the dynamo as a motor to drive the machine, but the magnets will have weakened over time and I doubt it would be man enough for the job unless over-volted, with the risk of burnout. (On subsequent consideration, one might get away with it if it could be started by handle and the handle could be removed when the machine in up to speed. The KOK handle does not lend itself to this, tho’ oddly, the Premier one does.)

I have made a new lamphouse without making any change to the original projector. It fits over the ring that is held to the back of the gate by two screws (part of the original lamphouse which somehow survived butchery. Did you ever have or know what happened to the original?)

The new one is, as per the original, a push fit over this ring. It needs a firm push, but I have deliberately left it stiff. If you need to change the lamp, undo the two screws retaining the ring, take the whole thing off and then put a finger in and pull the ring free. Only do this when the lamp is bust as you can’t avoid touching it and they don’t like it.

As I mentioned to you on the phone, I started making a "copy" of my KOK lamphouse, only to find it was much larger than yours must have been.

I had to make a new bracket for holding the top loop roller; the original will be in a jiffy envelope with the machine. NEVER throw anything away, as I keep telling ‘er indoors. I make an exception for that abortion masquerading as a lamphouse when I got it, tho’.

The original lamphouses have sort of light-trapped vent holes for cooling, standing proud of the main diameter. This is beyond my skills and probably not enough for the new lamp, so I have fitted a small fan, which takes its power from the lamp feed. It seemed to manage a full 400ft reel without getting too hot. It will, however, burn the film if it is stationary in the gate. The new lamp is 12v 50w QI; it might be possible to use the 100w, but I have erred on the side of caution. You can try it if you like; the power supply (see below) will take it.

While I was at it, I put some woodworm killer into all the flight holes I could find in the base. I also put glue on the worst of the peeling layer on the underside. I would emphasise that nothing I have done has involved any irreversible change to any original feature of the machine as received.

The power supply comes from a rather tired old Eumig P8, which had a 12v 100w lamp. I considered just removing the tranny, as I have done before, but this means a new box to be made, so I have simply left it in the projector, which already provides an adequate box. I took the brushes out of the motor so it won’t run. The 12v output for the lamp is switched on and off by the motor switch of the projector. All you have to do is plug in to the back of the P8 and connect the spade terminals to the KOK dynamo connections, leaving the existing spade connectors in place. I’ve removed the dynamo brushes too, so no power should go to the dynamo: they’re in the packet with the top roller arm. The power then uses the original wires to the lamphouse. In the alternative, you could buy one of those lighting transformers.

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More 28mm Repairs

There are many problems with your films, so I have devised a set of rules for you.

1.Remember these films are getting on for 90 years old.

They are brittle, shrunken, dried out and warped.

The grip of the emulsion on the base may be failing.

They have been subject in the past to much inexpert (to put it mildly) handling and repair.

The splices may be drying out and coming apart or splitting at the sides.

Some splices may no longer go thru the projector.

Spools can be rusty and bent and damage the films on rewinding.

Etc., etc., etc.

2. In short, they are a disaster waiting to happen unless treated with the utmost care and attention. This means:-

Don’t watch the film, watch the projector.

Be scrupulous to the point of paranoia about ensuring threading is right.

Don’t crank too fast. The KOK is unforgiving and will just as happily shred your films as show them. This in turn means no use of the generator – find another power supply.

Stop the projector at the SLIGHTEST sign of trouble – loss of top loop, film off the sprocket, take-up not working, ANY CHANGE IN THE SOUND THE PROJECTOR MAKES, etc. Fix the problem

Beware the sprocket – the teeth are sharp and can do considerable damage if the film comes partly off.

Mark any point where you think there may be damage and check on rewind.

Never insert the end of the film into the notch on the spool. It is always possible to attach the film by friction, especially as you can get your hand right down to the core on 28mm spools. It just causes damage and eventually the loss of the leader and then the end of the film. (See Lena R2)

3. Quite apart from all this, there is a danger the KOK may not like my repairs, even if they go thru my Premier. I am sorry all this sounds terribly obvious and teaching-my-grandmother-to-suck-eggs, but I never cease to be amazed at the damage I see in films I check, and I cannot comprehend why it was just allowed to go on and on and on, when it must have been obvious there was a problem. Just look at two of your own films to see what happens in the hands of someone who doesn't care.

4. Now to the individual films. The news is not good. Jui Jitsu is shrunken, thinned, buckled and the surface is crazed. It will never run and wouldn't be watchable if it did. Both the Historical Paris and Tom Tit and Robin Redbreast have been damaged beyond repair. These are the two to look at for what loonies can do to a film. As for the rest:-

R2. Pretty knocked about. Scratched and ripped in places - one very long diagonal split was caused by the cutting of a "V" in the side of the film where there was a split, which presumably then caught somewhere. Another split I had to cut out - there was no matching piece. Of three smaller rips at splices I repaired two and cut one out as it was at a title. Some quite severe scratches down the side. Sprockets weakened and splitting from the 3 sprocket side towards the middle of the film. Increasingly weak and splitting towards end - no end title. Not clear how much has been lost.

R1. Buckled, splicey, splitting as per R2. Some sprocket damage near start and huge longitudinal rips in the titles.

Should run OK now it’s repaired, at least on my proj.

This is not the Trout and the cuttlefish but that comedy extract you showed me on your KOK.

A bit splicey, but the real problem is something has been picking at the sprocket holes all down one side, just on the inside. Periodically, the damage actually breaks into the sprocket hole itself and causes a very peculiar double split. It starts at the centre line of the sprocket and at the corner of same. You get a very sharp corner of film that sticks up when the film bends. From time to time it has caught, and a small piece of film has been completely removed. Should run now it’s repaired.

No it’s not. What it appears to be, I fear, is part of Rastus Loses His Elephant, tho’ I may be wrong, as it has no titles. Ironically, it is in pretty good condition. It has quite a few tape splices and some tear repairs, but only one is mine, the rest were already there. The sprocket holes weren’t punched out tho’, so I did that.

Martyn

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I recently did some restoration/repair work on a Pathescope Premier for a friend, which arrived sans lamphouse. The projector as it stood was very odd - the pivoted leaf to which the lamphouse should have been attached was present, but in the shape of a Victor lamphouse, rather than the Premier type on my own machine. As usual, a major part of the challenge was to make and fit a lamphouse without doing any further violence to the machine. Here are some shots of the lamphouse I devised. It has a double skin, the outer held in place simply by the screws from inside the inner skin. A Pathé Baby provided a tube for the lamp, seen protruding on the left of the side view.

I wrote this up rather more fully in a note to the owner which follows.

Premier Pathescope.

Right. Here is a report to date. I stripped the projector down quite a lot, (see pix below) to help with cleaning and to get at one or two problem areas. I mentioned to you the potential                  

problem with the intermittent sprocket. It had somehow been squashed at one end, so it was no longer circular; I have managed to correct most of it, tho’ I have not yet run any tests to see if the very small pins on the squashed end do the job OK. The mechanism was stiff, and I traced this to the intermittent itself, which I therefore dismantled.

The intermittent sprocket is held onto its shaft by a taper pin. Presumably as part of whatever damaged the sprocket itself also bent something, because the mech worked fine when the pin was out, but jammed up again when I put it back. I don’t have the sort of drill for re-boring the hole – I’ve never come across them – so I replaced it with a nut and bolt; not ideal, and you will have to keep an eye on it in case it comes loose, a sign of which will be the film going out of rack. The Maltese cross bit runs in a semi oil-bath and has a gasket between the cover and the machine to keep the oil in. The original (which I will give you) was pretty far gone; my first attempt at replacement leaked, and I am just hoping the second will be OK.

The motor lead was broken off level with the casing, so I had to completely dismantle it. Fortunately, there was enough wire left for me to solder a new lead to, and the motor did work on test.

One of the biggest problems has been matching some of the screw threads, which are old American Imperial and sometimes hard to find. I even made some, for holding the base cover on. The original cover (which I will give you) was beyond hope; I made a new one. I didn’t try to re-use the remaining bits of the feet (ditto), and made new ones.

The lamphouse was a real marathon. For some reason, the hinged plate the lamphouse fixes to is of Victor pattern, suggesting a tall squared lamphouse with rounded bits where the lamp is. I started out down this route, but found it too difficult. I resorted to a simpler, circular job. The difficulty was fixing it to the machine – I did consider just a friction fit around the condenser, but the condenser was already cracked (no doubt the result of far too powerful a lamp in the pre-focus holder it arrived with). I succeeded in the end, but I did have to actually do something to the machine, which I normally avoid. It was only countersinking the screws that secure the condenser, tho, and not visible. I have fitted a 12v 50w lamp; you could try a 100w one if it doesn’t get too hot. The paint is heat-resistant, tho’.

The lamphouse is a two skin affair, to give some ventilation without too much light spill. I can’t hope to match the sort of thing found on an original lamphouse. Lucky the condenser was there; a new one would have been very hard to find. The lampholder I basically made, apart from the tube that mounts thru the hole into the lamphouse, which I stole from a Pathé Baby. I copied the connectors from the Baby, too. The mirror is from a 200B. I haven’t tested yet and I don’t know how well this will all work. A friend has found some braided wire that looks very like the original, so I have fitted some of this for the lamp connections.

I told you the front spool arm and back cover looked quite different from the rest – all glossy and undamaged. The back cover is in fact a bit of a force fit, so I suspect both parts came from a different machine.

The way the rear spool arm fits is odd. There is a square hole in the arm, and the large retaining screw had a square section at the top to match. Unfortunately, this was irrelevant as the arm fits on the opposite side of the mounting lug, which has a round hole. The screw ended up standing proud with its square peg refusing to go into the round hole. So the only other change I have made is to machine off the square bit on the screw.

As agreed, I have made no attempt to paint any of the original parts; all I have done it to clean and polish. It looks a bit piebald, with the back cover, front arm, lamphouse and shutter all looking new and the rest well battered.

One of the problems with everything I do is that it’s basically a series of one-offs. I have to design a solution to the problem, then make it work, so inevitably there are errors and false starts. Even with the shutter, which I have done before, I made several mistakes and had to re-do stuff.

What remains to be done now is:-

Finish the wiring. I plan to have a trailing connector coming out of the base thru an existing hole, a 5-way one for motor, lamp and earth.

Sort out a power supply. If I can find an old Eumig P8 I might do what I did with K’s KOK, and just re-wire the projector so it acts as the power supply – otherwise I have to build a box for the power supply.

Find a suitable lens.

Cross fingers and test.

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Some lucky people have KOK covers in good condition; here are some from Willem Hackman.

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