29th July

Re Danson; actually, what I said two days ago is not strictly correct. I do, of course, have a working amp from the first projector we worked on. Sound was OK but proj was

definitely slow. Put it in with my mech with the new belt and Whizzo! Bags of speed - had to crank it down a good bit - and volume, much of it achieved, interestingly, by

turning up the tone control, which had more impact than I am used to finding. Only problem is the mech is making a rhythmic noise. I did notice the shutter was scraping a

bit when I had it apart. I am not sure I want to go back in and look any further, as I have no plan for extended use.
So now we know:-

a)  the amps can work well;
b)  the speed problem is probably the belt;  the one I replaced is fine in terms of rot/durablity,

but appears to have stiffened up and has slight kinks/bends in it. I think these two factors, plus

maybe a bit stretching, account for the low speed achieved;
c)  replacing the belt is likely to mean replacing the flywheel, too.

27th July

Bin trying to fix up another Danson now I've sorted the flywheel problem. If only I could get the amp to work, I could test it in the one with the repaired flywheel. But I can't.

Here is the first reference I've ever seen to converting an H to sound. Does anyone have any pictures/details?

25th July

Has anyone ever actually seen one of these? Did it ever go into production? It's obviously very similar in appearance to the Pathé Vox, but why

would they want to copy that?

24th July

Dino Everett has sent a very early Baby catalogue, for Xmas/New Year 1922/3. He points out that there aren't actually any missing film numbers, possibly

making it unique amongst Pathé lists.

23rd July

Have been playing with Dansons again. Lot of additional material and pix, so the Danson now has its own page. There's a fair bit about Dansons in old projector amps,

 but I've repeated the relevant bits on the Danson page.

22nd July

Came across an interesting reference, in the same ACW for Dec 37, I think. It points out that, for a 200B using a blanking plate, a simple way to ensure the lamp

is switched off during rewinding is to get a spare blanking plate and remove the centre pin, covering up with insulating tape. I never thought of that. Perhaps

one could go further and make a new blanking plate substitute which would have a switch in it to connect or disconnect the lamp circuit...........

21st July

I have found in ACW for December 1936 an ad and a sort of review of the Peerless.

The same ad also refers to the SP Wundatone, a 16mm sound machine with intermittent sprocket. I had part of one once, many, many years ago,

but not the skill to do anything with it.

18th July

Now for a spot of Luxury (pun intended).

Regulars will know I have been meaning to get in touch with my inner Lux. I have been spurred into activity by Dino Everett in the States, who has what clearly declares itself

to be a Lux YD, a thing of which I have never before heard. The most striking characteristic of the YD is the gate, which at last does away with those horrid rear springs with

a self-contained, self-sprung, fully removable gate! Here are his pix.

What a shame it never had sprockets. Anyway, this means we now have at least four variants of the Lux:-

        the original YA with small lamphouse and nasty Mazac gate

        one I shall call the YB tho' I don't think it was ever formally designated as such, still with small lamphouse, but with a pressed steel gate and some changes to the mech

        the YC, with bigger lamphouse, steel gate and totally new notching mech

        the YD, as above, with sprauncy metal gate wot comes out to clean.

Let's do some more pix. First, here is a basic YA.

As you can see, the YB has that additional plate in front of the claw.

The YC seems to revert to the YA style in the first pic, but note that the lower disc in the YA claw box (which determines the length of a stop for a notch) is missing.

Instead, there is the arrangement on the right. Pic 2 shows the back of it.  Look at the large gear wheel - on the same shaft is a worm, and above the worm on the

left is what I call the "follower". This is very similar to the Baby mech; the follower engages with the worm and moves across to the right, compressing the spring

seen in Pic 1, RH side. A pin on the end of the worm throws the follower off and the spring takes it back to the start. A close-up of the follower is at pic 5 above.

I haven't yet figured out how the notching mech is initiated or, indeed, why this  particular one is not actually working. This is a subject I will inevitably return to

as I learn more. All I have on the YD so far is shown above.

Although I have given up on 16mm features, I seem to have a number of silents and shorts in need of repair. I have therefore modified my 16mm splicer to help.

First, I removed the blade as I find it is all too easy to cut the film as well, and now just use a craft knife or single-sided razor-like thing. In order to help with

sprocket repair, I have added the extra spools of pre-perforated tape. These are on a cantilever so I can still get the film to the splicer. I won't

know until I've used it a bit whether it would be better to have the cantilever the other way round. The support is, of course, made of Meccano (TM)

 - why make if you have the wherewithal to hand? The tape spools are deliberately left very free, so either can be brought into position. My final

mod is hard to see, so I have marked the ends in red. Basically, it is a strip of metal about 3mm from the front edge of the film bed. I pull tape out

with a very small-bladed screwdriver and lay it across the sprockets on the front edge. The metal strip then provides an edge against which I can cut

the tape at a convenient size to give a wrap-round. This sort of repair is useful because it does not encroach on the picture area, and I use it on most gauges.

More now added to the Care, Repair and Restoration section; this is about "detailing" a projector - cleaning up and presenting for display.

16th July

Bin too hot to do much on the cine front. However, past activity, the which you were not aware of ('cos I didn't tell you), has resulted in the new section now added

to Care and Repair, on old projector amps, on which Paul Schimmel has been advising me. Please read this first if you get hold of an

old sound machine BEFORE YOU PLUG IT IN.

1st June

Been looking at http://users.telenet.be/frank.ttt/, which has pix of things I never knew of, eg a 16mm Noris like the 9.5 and 8mm ones, what looks like an American

version of an H, very early Heurtier tri-gauge and a Bolex G3 rip-off. Loads of stuff also on phonographs, old radio's, film gauges etc. It's in Dutch, but I don't speak it

and still found all them pix fascinating. Some info on the early 17.5 film gauges. Add this to the 16/17.5 comparison and the multi-gauge comparison and you have

an overview of most of the amateur gauges.

30th June

Bin away - wedding of No. 2 daughter.

More stuff from Dave Richardson. The really sprauncy one, the Titra, cost almost as much as a projector. Then a cover for a Pathescope catlog, which

Pete Diggle has and dates to Summer 1935. More here.

23rd June

I don't think I've looked at this site before -  lots and lots of pix of projectors and stuff.

www.filmprojectors.eu

22nd June

In another typical example of my butterfly mind, I have for no good reason (except that I found it interesting), been looking at converting Cyldon 16mm spools to 9.5.

I did two, a 1600’ and an 800’ and, of course, I found that it’s harder than I thought. One major tricky bit in reel conversion is ensuring that the sides, and the circular

surface on which the film sits, are accurately and concentrically placed in relation to the centre. I have difficulty coming up with ideas to achieve this other than a solid

core of the appropriate diameter. Consider the Cyldon reel, which is actually quite clever. There is a central core 2" in diameter. It consists of two discs, pierced for the

 spool spindle, spaced apart by four pillars, which also pass thru the side cheeks and are then peened over, rather like riveting, to hold everything together. The surface

on which the film rests (let’s call it the film core) is only attached to the side cheeks, not to the central core. The film core is right next to the central core in the 800’

but an inch further out on the 1600’. The pix make all this much clearer; this one shows an unaltered 1600'.

The two discs referred to are dished in the centre, and the side cheeks have a large centre hole to fit over this. With this and the separate film core, it’s not easy to see how to

re-use them without a solid central core of the right diameter – 2 to 3 inches – which would be heavy or wasteful (and expensive) in material by making holes to lighten it.

(You should be aware that prices for metal and plastic get very silly when you are trying to buy them in small quantities.) I decided to experiment with tube material to keep the

weight (and price) down a bit, and found some in both aluminium and plastic with an inside diameter a bit smaller than 2" that I could bore out for a tight fit round the central core,

which I planned to re-use to circumvent the sort of problems outlined above. I drilled out the "rivets" on each side of the core with a drill about 4.8mm. This size is about right to

separate off the part of the riveting above the surface; don’t drill too deep because we want to re-use the pillars. Once the pillars are released in this way, you have to prise off

the film core; I usually try to get a screwdriver blade between film core and spool cheek and twist to force them apart. Damaging the film core is OK, but not the spool cheeks.

If you can’t get started, I have found that if you stand the reel vertically, you can hit the film core very hard without damaging or distorting the sides. I use a cold chisel,

but a heavy screwdriver would probably do. Once started, it’s easy to follow the gap around to prise the rest off.

In re-assembling, I gave very careful thought to appearance, mindful of those otherwise useful giant 8mm spools that were marred by huge nuts and bolts. I decided to go for 3mm screws,

my default size for a great many things. The heads are small enough to be unobtrusive, particularly with the flat, round-headed type. I originally wanted to use countersunk heads,

which could fit pretty much flush with the surface of the spool cheeks, but this didn’t work. The reason was that, in order to maintain accurate location, the adapted pillars had

to extend thru both the discs of the central core and the side cheeks, as a sort of registration pin. In the original, the rivets themselves were the right size (about 5mm), but

4 x 3mm screws thru holes in both discs and cheeks would leave a lot of room for slop and could easily leave the reel unbalanced. Trouble is, the side cheeks are only a bit over

#1mm thick and there is no room for both pillar and the taper of a countersunk head. I found the screws were not able to grip the sides firmly enough to the pillars because they

tightened against the pillars first. 

The new pillars are made from the old. They need to be trimmed down to a central length of 8.5mm approx, with 2mm extensions at each end,

trimmed down to about 4.7mm diameter. A hole is bored thru the centre and tapped with a 3mm metric thread. The picture left shows the component

parts of the 800' conversion, first assembled then apart.. For the spindle core I followed exactly the pattern of those used on the 9.5mm 900’ fibre reels.

This fits neatly into the 16mm holes in the central core. Note only 3 of the 4 pillars are visible - one is still in one of the discs.

For the 1600’ spool, I used black acetal (a kind of nylon, I think), in the form of a tube of about 3" external diameter and 1.75 internal. I bored this out to make a tight fit round the

central core – I didn’t really want to add more screws, tho’ I suspect I may have to. It still falls well inside where the original was, so I made sure to smooth off the holes where the

film core had been fixed, to avoid snagging the film. I normally attach film to spools by friction alone, especially those spools with larger cores. However, I did make a couple of

token saw cuts at an angle into the plastic that could take an end of film.

For the 800’, I used aluminium, with a much thinner wall. The 800’ original has cut-outs in the spool cheeks to enable film to be threaded into a slit in the film core. I decided to

provide such a slit but, as I was not planning to secure the film core other than by friction, I thought it best to put a strut across a chord of the film core before cutting the slit

(seen above left). In retrospect, I think it might be as well to fix the film core with screws – these could go thru the holes left by the original, tho’ they would have to be small

to fit into the thin metal of the film core. The actual width of the film core is about 11.5. This seems to me a bit wide but it matches the old Pathescope ones and, with a

straight-sided spool, it may be best to have a bit of leeway. The only remaining task is to drill holes in the right place to take the drive pin on the projector spindle.

Finally, here are the completed articles.

20th June

Another old catlog from Dave Richardson. I doubt this one will surface soon - doing what you see here took hours.

18th June

Some splendid pictures of an American Premier Pathescope from Alain Gomet. It is in superb condition, with original packing case and instruction book and a classy, brassy

switch with separate controls for lamp and motor. It also has a lamp resistance, something I have not previously come across; presumably it travelled in the upright

position and was lowered for use.

8th June

Thanks to Pete Diggle, who has sent in this pic of an early (1917ish) 35mm and some pages from what looks to be a fascinating book.

7th June

Does anyone know if there is any difference between the 12v lamps sold for low-voltage lighting and the ones sold as Class A1 projection lamps? I suspect there could be differences in light output, life and filament position, but have no evidence or info.

I ask because I've been fiddling with a lamp conversion for a Pathé 28mm KOK, using a ceramic lampholder which will take 12v 35 -100w lamps and maybe higher wattage.

Pic 1 shows the KOK lamphouse "cap" which slides onto the front part of the lamphouse, which is fixed to the projector. (This is a "mains" model; no dynamo, smaller crank handle and  smaller pulley wheel at the rear). The lampholder is incorporated into the cap. The bit on the right screws into the tube in the cap and incorporates a spring-loaded lower contact. This part is not used in this conversion.

There is very little room to do anything; getting the lamp at the right height is hard enough. As usual, I was constrained by my desire to avoid any changes to the original. I made the holder unit to fit into the existing tube from the top, just as a lamp would be inserted; this enforced considerable miniaturisation. The unit is a force fit, basically wedged in rather then fixed with screws or whatever.  In pic 3, you can see a short piece of brass rod, about 8mm in diameter. This has two thru holes which take the wires from the ceramic holder. One of these wires is cut off short, with the end stripped and folded over so that it wedges into its hole. This provides a contact thru to the terminal on the side of the lamphouse cap. Because the rod is smaller than the ceramic holder, the wires don't fit neatly and the ceramic holder flops about. This is therefore fixed in place with Araldite, so that the holder and brass rod are permanently joined and not floppy.

A third hole is drilled and tapped into the lower end of the brass rod. A screw (with its head much reduced in diameter) passed thru the teflon rod  (see pic 4) and fixes it it to the brass rod. Another hole allows the second wire from the the ceramic holder to pass thru. As for the brass rod, a third hole is drilled and tapped into the lower end of the teflon rod. The wire connecting to the power supply, and the end of the second wire from the ceramic holder, are soldered into rough loops. A nylon screw then passes thru the two lops, thru a small spacer and into the threaded hole in the teflon rod. This keeps everything insulated. In practise, it's easier to fit the unit into the cap if the nylon screw is first removed, but that's not a major problem. The aluminium sleeve has a grub screw which grips onto the brass rod; this allows a bit of up/down adjustment. Unfortunately, the unit has to be removed to get at the grub screw.

Whilst this was fascinating to try to do, with all the figuring out and trial and error, I hope someone can come up with a better idea - if you can, I shall be happy to publish it here.

I've added part of another Pathé "programme" for 1933-34. It seems to be very much an austerity issue compared with the 1931-32 edition. (For some reason I can only link to the top of the page so you'll have to scroll down.)

1st June     

These three additions to the Bing canon are courtesy Trevor Adams in NZ - I didn't even realise there WAS a clockwork Bing! The mech looks even more basic - no big gear! Where do all these collectors dig them up? I suppose they spend all their time on the internet and at car boot sales instead of keeping web sites up to date.

30th May

Baby Enlarger Attachment

I've never see even a photo of one of these before, just adverts. Dave R has done a splendid job in showing exactly what it is and how it works. The idea is you put some photo-sensitive film in the big end, to copy whatever frame you have in the gate. Exposure must have been trial and error. The only instructions available are in French. The two different slots are for the standard 30mm lens or the short-throw 26mm.

Baby Magnifier Attachment

This was supposed to approx double the size of the projected picture. What it must have done to the brightness, tho'.......

28th May

Been making a few changes to the front end and making a separate home for copies of all the French language material. Let me know if you spot any problems.

26th May

Variety is the spice of life. Guess who provided these?

23rd May

Maurice Trace, as I mentioned earlier, is currently researching Pathex; here is one of his "finds". I've started to put all Pathex stuff in a new page. Dave Richardson has slipped and allowed a Kid thru, and tried to sneak in a 1953 projector (produced for one year only, he says), on the grounds it's labelled Baby. I think the motor  leaflet was mine.

21st May

I know you like inside bits, so here is a Baby camera motor, courtesy Tony Reypert.

20th May

More from David Richardson. Pathex was obviously not just a brand name for the US. Most of the lamp boxes are his, too. My version of the early 1:1 rewinder is not in such good condition. There are there other versions of the notching device that I have seen - why on earth did they make so many versions of the same thing? The penultimate pic pic is a thing I have not come across before - I believe it puts the clips into the centre of Baby cassettes to hold the film - see final pic.

Now some motor details. In order these are an early "B" type; the later "B" type; the 1922 "R" type; early "S" type from 1926; 1928  French "S" type; 1928 "S" type; 1929 "S"; the "C" type from 1930. The last three pix show how the semi-automatic speed control worked; when the motor tried to speed up at a notch (mech stopped, therefore no load), the inner weights shown in the second of these pix would tend to fly out, so increasing braking force.

My most recent activity has been with 16mm machines. I have a B&H 643, quite a late version I believe, manual threading, incandescent lamp (valve-type base), optical and magnetic. Given that the projector looks quite well used, I was amazed to see an original worm, looking to be in perfect condition and allowing the projector to purr along quietly. I was so impressed I changed that dreadful Jones plug input for a Euro-plug type. They really did not want people bypassing their work. There are, of course, 4 pins to a Jones plug; this is quite unnecessary, as all it means is there are two live input pins. Inside, the colours of the wires seem designed deliberately to confuse, not corresponding to any of the usual colour codes. Once you remove the original receptacle, the holes are of course in the wrong place for a replacement. What I did was to make a flat plate the same size as the original receptacle, and offset the euro plug (I always find this confusing) to one side. It is secured by one of the original screws and by a screw into an extra hole in the plate. The other original screw fits as before. I had to slightly file out a couple of holes is all. I can't even be bothered to photograph sucha dull amchine. Incidentally, I think the extension speaker sockets are also a weird type. so I'll have to replace them, too.

Here is a much more interesting proposition. It's a genuine Debrie double band machine, but it looks like it's been used in a lab or some such, as there seem to have been many changes to input/output plugs and wiring. It even has an additional, half normal size sprocket on the projector side. There are micro-switch controlled rollers at the front. It has substantial, proper sprocket retaining rollers, and a chimney on top. Also variations to the oil circulation system and a very unusual gate. Obviously a chequered career.

18th May

A Pathé Cockerel which I have copied and cleaned up 'cos I like the highly stylised look.

Some ads and extracts from Pathescope Monthly dredged up by David Richardson.

11th May

The mystery object was correctly identified by Terry Vacani. It is a Peerless 9.5. Almost exactly the same machine was also sold as the Triplico, in two models, the Junior for 9.5 only and the Senior for 8 & 16 as well. I have no decent pix of the Triplico, which seems to have a much more enclosed mechanism, at least in its tri-gauge version, but is otherwise the same. Any good pix or a decent copy/scan of instructions would be most welcome. Here it is after re-assembly from bits and a bit of tidying up.

I actually got it working finally, but it was a bit of a struggle, and the pic was poor and lacking focus. The Mazac issue caused several problems. The mech would barely fit back into the body without jamming up and the pic was out of focus across the screen, both due I suspect to Mazac distortion. The other big problem was that only one of the sprockets had a rim. Whether I put the rimmed one top or bottom it caused problems as the film just wandered off the sprockets. The sprocket was actually about 14mm wide, and the film retaining rollers just sat on it, doing nothing to guide the film. Because of the width of the sprocket, washers would not work so I came up with the approach illustrated. The brass bits on the top sprocket fit round and over the edges of the sprocket. Being slightly greater diameter than the sprocket, they guide both the film and the retaining rollers and correct the problem. Framing is a bit by lever but the rest by rotating the bottom sprocket until the limited range of the lever can come into play. The only other option, making a new sprocket, is beyond me.

I have a lot more to say about this but I am, you will be glad to hear, keeping it for a special piece.

David Richardson seems to be an unending source of rare material. Here is a catalogue issued by Pathex in America.

While we're on the subject of Pathex, can I request any material or information anyone may have? Maurice Trace is researching Pathex and needs info. Also, note Pathexor lens 2nd May below and this (once more from Dave Richardson).

I've cheated a bit on the blurb by mocking up an English-only version; I saw no reason to tidy up a load of foreign stuff to give you the whole thing.

Anyone for 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.

2nd May

How can I not have looked at this site before? Lots of amazing stuff for the real techie on film, stocks, colour, Kinemacolor and other colour systems etc etc. Visit.

www.brianpritchard.com/Kinemacolor%20Project.htm

David Richardson has been at it again. This apparently does the same job as the cone-shaped Pathé Magnifier lens. The third pic shows a Pathexor Krauss lens, one of two better-quality lenses available for the Baby, the fourth other, the Hermagis.

And this is more stuff about the water-cooled condenser set-up. It seems to have been made by a company called Mollier, and come in two versions. First was a new lamphouse to give a brighter light from a new lamp and condenser lens, tho'

the voltage and wattage of the lamp seem a bit unclear. The second or "Super" version had the water-cooled jacket. Partly because it's not always clear from my knowledge or not of technical French, and partly because all we have to work on is an extract from a French equivalent of a Wallace Heaton Blue Book, everything else is less than clear, too. The text seems to imply that there is an automatic voltage reduction for still frames, to prevent heat damage to the film. However, looking at the pic shows no way this could happen and Dave can't see how either, despite having got one of them. We shall have to find more info.

28th April

Dave Humphrey has reminded me of www.paulivester.com (click on films when you get there) and also pointed me at www.film-tech.com, which has manuals and stuff, tho' mainly American and modern.

22nd April

I have added some more pix, with measurements, to the 28mm rewind bit below.

This week's mystery object is:-

My theory is that, if I can find a way of putting it together with the various bits shown in the pix below, I shall get a projector.

8th April

Then I got the dreaded stomach bug at Easter and have been steamrollered since. However, this I had mostly done before incapacity set in.

21st March

Took advantage of a bright , sunny day to do a bit of outdoor photography. My poor little 2megapixel camera didn't know what had hit it. Instead of struggling to illuminate the gloom, there was far too much light. Anyway, here are the pix.

The Acmade is self-explanatory to those who know about such things. Then there is a real Danson and an Agfa Movector - thees projecteur I know from nuutheenk. Finally 2 KOKs of the decrepit variety, which I purchased along with a third which has little more than the frame left, as a restoration project. I need another restoration project like I need a hole in the head.

I am looking for information about these Specto Analysers. The RH one has the inching button which is part missing on the LH one. Centre one has no button at all. And what about that 3-pin socket two of them have? What does it do? (If anyone knows of a source for the plugs to fit such sockets I shall be eternally grateful.) And it's not much better at the back- The centre one has a shaft protruding which seems to have lost its knob, but it's in a quite different place to the other two. I would much appreciate a copy, to buy or borrow, or a scan or even a photocopy of various editions of the instructions for these machines. I doubt these are the only variants - I've put a leaflet of a much later model somewhere. (See the Specto page.)

19th March

I recently worked on a 200B, recently acquired by its owner, that had gradually slowed down and ultimately ceased running almost completely. To cut a long story short, although the owner had oiled it, he had taken on board the injunctions one always sees in instructions not to over-oil. Unfortunately, he didn't have the instructions anyway, so had also missed some of the more carefully-hidden oiling holes beneath the lens and under the rear mech cover. Quite apart from the lack of instructions, a common problem with old projectors, this incident made me realise that you can't rely on "oil little and NOT often" guidance with a machine that's 50-plus years old and may not have been run at all in the last 20 years. What this machine needed was a good dosing with oil to ensure it reached all old, dried-out bearings etc - especially those on motors, where there is often a felt "wick" arrangement that has to be "re-filled" before any oil actually reaches the bearing. Then a good clean-up, after which one can revert to the standard advice and oil more sparingly. The machine then ran normally.

I also 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?

16th March

I have now figured out how to get some pix from Flickers into here, so you can see all the covers, contents and back pages from issues 121 onwards.

15th March

Been playing about with a 9.5mm Campro camera/projector, following a query about the power supply. I got the instructions from Warton Parfitt (I know, I should have gotten them ages ago, but it's not the Boy Way). From these I find that there are in fact two models of the Campro. The presumably original model has a very basic lens with 3 stops only - bright, dull but, as the third was is project, only two really. The later version has a decent-looking lens. They were made by a company called Home Cine Cameras Ltd of 18 Gray's Inn Road in London.

I discover from the instructions that I have several parts missing. There should apparently be a little gizmo that goes over the lens for projection - I don't know, but guess this could be a supplementary lens. There should also be a rewind handle and a two-pin plug to fit in the back of the projector to power the lamp. I decided to make up a little plug, on the lines of a Pathé design - see pic right. I did actually try to run a film through, but the picture was small and dim. This may of course be due to the lack of the extra lens (if that's what it was) and the fact that I was not using the "special" lamp originally provided. This was 6v 6w, but the recommended dry-cell battery was 7.5v; maybe they relied on over-running it to get a brighter light. I could perhaps try a halogen, but it's certainly not worth bothering unless I can get my hands on a projection attachment.

I am very impressed by the Campro motor, which will handle at least 30ft on a single wind, or so it claims. It winds nice and quiet - no ratchet. Sadly, however, the Campro is made of Mazac and the cover on mine has warped enough that it no longer fits correctly. One could in principle use it tho', as it takes a 9.5 charger. There were several others similar machines; here is a pic from Son (ugh) of Gallery that Trevor Adams sent me; it shows the Screnus, the later-model Campro and the Midas.

Here is the machine in its two modes; as projector with 30 & 60ft cassettes and as camera with charger. Note that with a charger far more of the film gets exposed as a loop, than in other 9.5 cameras, hence presumably the stern injunction never to open the camera before a film is finished. The take-up spool core has a very prominent prong to grip a sprocket hole; care is needed not to rip the film when rewinding. The claw seems reluctant to engage easily and the instruction book does say to use the inching knob to start it. Seemed a bit tricky. It's fine once it's going tho'. There is a brass pin in the middle of the film compartment, immediately behind the lamp - it don't revolve with the mech and I'm not clear what it does.

10th March

Ugh!

Keystone is a name I usually associate with 16mm, but this one appears to be 9.5. That dome presumably covers a pilot light.

9th March

I don't know where Dave Richardson finds all this stuff.....

When I saw this monster, I knew I just had to have it. It's immense - about 10 x 6 x 6 inches. I have never seen its like before, in the flesh or even in a catalogue. It turns out it's for a Lux with SS lamp and to connect the motor, too. Inevitably, David Richardson had a catalogue entry for it......

If you look closely, the cover for the meter is busted, tho' I would hope I can scavenge one from another resistance. You may also note that it says PATHEX under the meter, which seems odd to me. The knob on the other end changes resistance by a screw-thread mechanism, which means it has a long travel and changes only slowly. Great object.

2nd March

Interesting visit to Cinema Museum, but sadly (from my point of view) heavier on memorabilia than on projectors. Made a foolish purchase tho' - I may tell you more when I find out just how foolish.

Can I just remind you of this superb website. Not only scores of pix of rare equipment, but all sorts of helpful links. Visit it. http://www.xs4all.nl/~wichm/cinimage.html

22nd February

Off to the Cinema Museum in London at the weekend for their bazaar.

Have finally finished sorting the Monaco - I had to change the motor. Having actually run the thing, I can now say that it does work; against expectations, the sprocketless drive works and seems to have no trouble maintaining loops. It's OK once you actually get your head round it, but it was never going to succeed in the mass market. While I was at it, I went to the Monaco page and lightened up some of the pix, which were rather gloomy.

19th February

I've added quite a bit of material to the section on the "H" projector.

12th February

I can't recall if I mentioned that on initial test my latest H restoration showed the shutter was well out of line, with lots of "rain" on the screen. I thought fixing this would require stripping the side off the machine again, but it turns out to be a lot simpler. The shutter mech is a separate sub-assembly; loosening two securing nuts just above the claw allows the shutter to be pushed up and disengaged from the rest of the mech so it can be adjusted.

6th February

Just acquired a load of bits and pieces (no projectors), which is requiring some sorting and even more trying to find somewhere to actually put it.

Report back on the Lux conversion is that the owner is pleased.

Have returned to working on an "H", which was running concurrently with the Lux work. It's a very fiddly machine to work on - the wires for the lamp pass through the end of the motor, past the brushes, as does a wire to the motor resistance. I know this helps with pivoting, but the result is an extremely cramped layout where the wires meet the resistance mat and the bottom of the lamphouse. The lamphouse itself is a right hodge-podge, and all the screws need to be in place before the thing takes on any rigidity. And you have to work with the fact that there is very little "play" with all those connecting wires so you have to more or less build it in situ. I found that the motor fan was juuuust catching the casing intermittently, but to get at it to re-adjust the spacers meant virtually dismantling the lamphouse over again. And on test, the shutter has obviously gotten out of synch with all this messing around so I gotta take the whole side off the mech. And that side plate will only come off if you also remove two of the bolts securing the mech to the base. Why is nothing ever simple?

 I am trying a new, simpler approach to "H" lamp conversion, using one of those mini-transformers used for modern low-voltage lighting, and a different lampholder, seen left. As you can see, it's just a standard round ceramic holder, rather crudely glued/ filler-ed into a bit of tube the size of the original lamp socket. This tube happens to be threaded, but that's not necessary. The wires just pass down thru the lamp socket to the terminals, to which the wires from the tranny also attach. The standard lamp securing screw is not quite long enough to grip without the added "T" piece, so I just stuck a little bit of thin brass rod into the hole and fitted the screw thing on top. You may be able to see that it is possible to offset the ceramic holder a bit in fixing it into the tube. This helps to bring the lamp filament closer to the original position, which is slightly forward of the centre line of the lamp socket. The tube allows up-and-down adjustment (bit trial and error unless you use a low voltage feed so you adjust the lamp while it's on - not very nice at full power, I would imagine), which may be particularly helpful. This is because there are a lot of cheap low-voltage lamps around now, and I suspect that are not up to the standard of a proper A1 Class projection lamp. Some I've seen have the filament much lower than it should be.

This particular "H" is one I've had for years, but there was a break in the motor resistance mat and I had shied away from fiddling. Being now older and bolder, I had a go, and found it was fiddly but reasonably easy to unwind a single turn of the wire, and tie the ends back together on the back face of the mat with a normal Granny knot. It's impossible to get things tight like this and, left loose, the whole thing can start to unravel. So what I've done is to use some Milliput to stick the joins down and take up any slack. This keeps the wire reasonably in line and, on results so far, seems to work well. There are at least two joins in this one, yet there seems to be no gap in the smooth change of speed as the pointer is moved.

Something else that's a problem with the "H", especially if you're converting the lamp, is the motor fan. This is a rather crude affair of 4 vans, made of a single Mazac casting and very fragile - it's very easy to bust one off. Last one I did, I managed to bust off the two that were left, but I luckily had a little fan that would fit instead. I am looking into the possibility of making a sort of copy, with aluminium vanes glued (Gorilla glue) to a core.

I think lamp conversion is essential for the "H", quite apart from the difficulty of obtaining originals. 80v 100w is plain silly, and was clearly chosen for price rather than performance, and because it was, in fact, the old "S" lamp coming round again, not even the more powerful "SS" of 80v 160w. I have, as regulars will know, shoe-horned a Eumig P8 tranny into an "H", but why bother when you can use a "switch mode" tranny about one fifth the size? (see left). The only problem is that at the 100w level, they can start to get a bit expensive, particularly if you pay High Street prices. Try www.cpc.co.uk  or some other big online mob. You can also see left that I have replaced the switch with a double-pole, double-throw, centre-off type. This has enabled me to wire up so that moving the switch one way turns on just the motor, and moving it quickly across the "Off" position to the other side, both motor and lamp are on, with virtually no sign that you have in fact crossed an off position on the way. This seems a good alternative to finding some way of adding another switch. There must be switches that do off-on-on, but I've never found one. I do like to be able to run the motor without the lamp for cooling, and it may well be that the new lamp produces more heat, making this more important. The "H" does have that sliding shutter device, but you still have motor and lamp together.

I fixed the mains lead in place with a rubber band so you can see all of it. I hate those long trailing mains leads that you can't disconnect, so this is my answer to avoid cutting holes in projectors - the trailing lead has a socket into which fits a standard euro mains plug like what you get with your kettle etc. You may feel the wiring looks a bit untidy - two reasons; a) I wanted to take one of the mains leads to the motor from a socket on the tranny, but it flatly refused to accept the wire and b) for reasons outlined above, I wanted to leave some slack to assist future access.

My hope is that all these changes, plus adding some rubber feet (and did you know there are/can be/ should be thin rubber pads between the motor supports/pivots and the base?), will bring the "H" up to something like I always thought it should be. With a superb claw and an excellent gate, it really should be a very good machine. Many I've seen have a grinding sort of noise from the motor or mech and don't sound the thing at all. I've sprayed a good wodge of silicone grease into the mech and ensured well-oiled bearings for the motor, and this one at least now sounds like any typical silent projector. The other big issue is, of course, those silly 300ft arms. Already I am plotting how best to extend them. I do actually have one "H" awaiting restoration which appears to have original 900ft arms. I may also have to look at improving the take-up, which relies solely on slippage of the wire belt, there being no slipping clutch arrangement.

3rd February

I have been getting in touch with my inner Lux, starting with a lamp conversion. You know how I prefer to leave projectors in their original state, or returnable thereto. These pix show how I've tackled this with the Lux.

Removing the spring-loaded lamp retainer (pic 1) leaves two holes (already tapped M6 x 0.6, not the normal M6 thread - I had to make screws) in the bottom of the lamphouse, and there are already slots at the base of both inner and outer lamphouse covers. In pic 2, you can see that a thick piece of Tufnol has been drilled to fit these two screw holes, with a hole to go round the upstanding part of the original lampholder, a cut-out to avoid blocking cooling air from the motor fan and a notch to allow the lamp wires to pass thru the slots in the lamphouse covers. The lamp is mounted on a sheet of aluminium with two M2 screws into tapped holes. A slotted hole provides for fore and aft adjustment of the lamp - height and side-to-side can be set in advance, but not fore and aft so easily. The alu sheet is held down by just a single screw thru the slot and thru the Tufnol (I didn't need to counter-sink the Tufnol hole, but I was making this all up on the fly). It seems adequately secure. I couldn't use the other hole in the same way as there is virtually no space between the hole and the inner lamphouse cover, and anyway it would block ventilation from the motor fan.

In pic 3, the lump of alu which I bored out to take the figure-of-eight socket is deep enough to allow the wires to be fed thru their holes and soldered to the terminals, then covered by some thin Tufnol. This block will then fit onto the outer lamphouse cover, with screws passing thru the alu block, thru the vertical slots in the lamphouse cover, into a metal strip with two tapped holes. This is the same idea as one of the fixings for the ammeter. The entire unit as seen here can be removed just by undoing a few screws. Replace the lamp retainer and the machine is back to original. No need to change the original wiring at all. I plan an  external power supply - one of those modern low-voltage lighting transformers - with a switch in its mains lead, powering a 12v 50w lamp, which will hopefully not damage still frames. With a bit of black paint, the conversion won't be invisible but relatively unobtrusive. Here are more pix showing the original lamp retainer in place and various views of the conversion. In pic 3 below you can just see the threaded strip between the two lamphouse covers.

10th January 2010

Wot, you ask, hav he bin doin' all thru Xmas and well into New Year wiv no postings?

Well, partly it's been visitors - daughters, friends - and visiting - neighbours, friends. And partly it's been far too cold in my beloved workshop during this cold snap. And partly the excesses of Xmas and the darkness of the weather hav left me somnolent.

One thing that actually took up a great deal of time was this, but at least it was something I could do largely inside, with just occasional forays into the garage. The back-story is that, some years ago, when I got back into 17.5 and 28mm, I identified the need for at least "fake" leader from 35mm, ie just a strip of film with no holes, to use on the front end of films where it would never need to go thru the projector, and saving the very limited supplies of real leader for where they were really needed. It was then I constructed the inner core of this device, the silvery drum buried in the middle. This drum is aluminium, with very narrow slots for cutters, so placed as to give 28mm wide with one blade and 17.5mm with two. Originally, I was using razor blades, then later I graduated to the circular blades you get in rotary cutters found in craft etc shops. Unfortunately, the original did not give very good results, the cut edges being very wavy and the width therefore a bit inconsistent. So I adopted a much lower-tech approach, and got some strips of steel cut to 28mm and 17.5 mm wide, then used a Stanley knife to cut. This was moderately successful.

However, I now have a need for something much more accurate. I have in recent times acquired quite a bit of 17.5 silent film, double-perf, and want to show it on the correct machine at something like the correct speed. I have zilch leader, however, of the double-perf persuasion. A year or two back, I acquired much of the 17.5 film and projector collection of John Cunningham, via another collector who had regretfully decided he couldn't keep it. Among this was a film perforator, John being a brilliant engineer. This, however, will only perforate one side at a time. It is also set for 17.25mm, on the assumption that 17.5 would have shrunk with time and the perforator really being meant to re-perforate film with chewed sprocket holes.

Clear so far?

So I decided to have another go at my first attempt, having concluded that the problem was the inherent jerkiness of hand operation and a lack of sufficient guides. Among many things I have acquired over the years is quite a bit of Meccano that is not good enough for my main model-making stock, but is fine for this sort of project. There is also the advantage that using Meccano in such poor condition means you escape the notice of the Meccano thought police who get very snippy about using non-Meccano parts. So I added chain drive for the cutters and the cutter drum, and various guides and braces and, after innumerable false starts, dismantlings and rebuildings arrived at the mech you see above. It does however, have two problems. First, it is an uncompromising engineering piece, with no thought for ease of setting up and using - it's a bugger to thread - and second, it doesn't actually work. The effort required to drive the cutters thru the film is quite high and I think it would probably need a much more robust mech to do the job. There may also be design flaws - after all, I just made it up as I went along. Still, I enjoyed the doing, even if it has proved fruitless. So I have retired to lick my wounds and ponder.

Another thing I have been doing is some adjustments to my second silent 17.5 Rural, once re-bodied as described on 24th December last. When I tested it, it wouldn't keep the bottom loop. This seemed likely to be due to the fact that the lower sprocket retaining thingy was not sprung, relying simply on gravity. I couldn't see any simple way of adding a spring, but then I recalled that, when we had a conservatory built a year or two back, I had noticed lots of the lead flashing they used where the roof joined the house just lying about loose. I thought that as I was paying, I would keep a bit of this as you never know when it might come in useful. And so it has. I added three strips of lead (one is inside out of sight) held in place by one of those little devices where a screw fits into a threaded boss, with a countersunk head on both sides of the equation. This seems to have worked, tho' it will need a bit more testing to be certain.

The other problem was that I was getting a substantial halo of surplus light on the screen all round the picture. I have fitted a 15v 150w dichroic to this machine, rather than using the original Vox lamp. The other machine, with the original lamp, doesn't seem to have the same problem. I don't know if the light is too bright, too unfocussed (I had to mount the dichroic pretty close to the gate), or if it is an artefact of a non-bloomed lens. Anyway, I thought of something that had puzzled me in one of the illustrations from a pre-war Alef catalogue (see Alef Mask). I thought, aha! Maybe this fitment is to block halos, so I made a thingy for the Rural. Unfortunately, it don't work - not having a lot of luck at the moment. I tried a bit of black card to reduce the size of the hole, but could not get a clean edge. I suspect this may be because my mask is before the point at which the light rays from the lens cross over - certainly, the bit of card had to go well into the hole before it was even noticeable. At least, that's a theory which I shall have to test. Anybody got a better idea?

24th December

I have been working away in my very cold garage on my second silent 17.5 Rural. You may recall (see 16th April entry below) that I was having problems finding a lens that would work. So far I have failed, but I was suddenly struck by what I can only describe as a brilliant idea, tho' I do say it myself. I have a couple of sound Rural-converted-to-16mm machines, pretty battered about. So I stripped down the mech of one of them, everything except the horizontal shaft which carries the cam and, crucially, the  larger lens barrel that meant I couldn't use the lens in my silent mech. Then I put the silent mech parts in and Voilà! - I have a working silent Rural, with a lens, tho' it's a bit larger than the original. And I achieved all of this without making any permanent change to either machine. Cool, huh?

21st December

I have not been inactive, tho' it's a bit too cold in my garage right now for my liking. I have assisted a junior nerd to fit a tranny and 12v 10w lamp to a Baby, and fettled a motor to fit it. I have corrected two problems on  Bolex DA so it now works; I am wondering about a) conversion to QI and b) fitting motor and lamp switches. I have checked and repaired some more 17.5 - a depressing occupation. I looked at Oliver Twist, 8r sound, on 4 x 1000' reels. Reels 1-3 sprockets almost totally intact (rare enough in itself). Reel 4 - water damage all the way thru, with frequent and regular quite small patches where the emulsion is dried out and scratchy or stripped off altogether. Looks like water fell onto the reel at one point and soaked in. Naturally, the worst affected is the sound track. Repaired a "test" film and ran it a) on Super Rural No. 1 and B) a Gebescope Model A converted to 17.5 by the late John Cunningham. He was a brilliant engineer and the Gebescope gives splendid results. Looked at a 16mm copy of Charlie the Burglar, which has nearly as much sprocket damage as a 9.5 or 17.5 film. I spose it mite just go thru a twin claw silent machine.

14th December

I have found various articles about projectors and light output which I shall add as I process them to a new page under lamps, called light output.

13 December

See 1st December below. I have now finished checking the Betty Balfour, and fortunately the remaining 3 reels are much better. Also a couple of cartoons that didn't reach 9.5 - Summertime and A Stone Age Romance turned out to be in good shape.

I've never really used a Gem in anger, so to speak, nor have I seen the instructions. So here as a compromise are the Instructions for a  Mark VIII (and what an ugly machine it is), with 9.5 added as a mere footnote.

Compare this to the original Gem, which has that amazing air of an Art Deco design out of its time, even tho' The Dark Lord corrupted it and

made it into a Son (ugh!), the cine equivalent of an Orc.

9th December

This is not strictly Rural, tho' it has a nice projector pic, so I shall put it in 17.5 advertising. Not finished yet.