Kodak 16mm Silent Projectors

Model "A" 

The only place to start is with the Kodascope "A", the very first 16mm projector.

Only the first picture is the first machine however, distinguished by the small lamphouse. The others are the more common second version. It is an interesting machine, very solidly engineered with lots of internal gears, but then using that gimcrack little motor and drive. It is built on a large scale, particularly when one compares it to the Pathé Baby projector introduced a bare year before. Despite the inroduction of 16mm being justified in part by the use of safety film only, the "A" has that curious arrangement almost like the films boxes on contemporary 35mm machines, but apparently without a lid.

Model "B"

Next in alphabetical order was the Model "B", though I am by no means sure of the chronology, as it is so different from the "C" and "D" (and so much more complex and costly).

Several years ago, I acquired a Kodascope Model B. I pootled about with it a bit, but for some reason put it aside without testing. Some time later I acquired a second and more recently, I have been spurred into action by a beautiful Home Cinema boxed version on ebay, so I thought it was time to have a go, particularly as I by then had a copy of the instructions from Ashton reproductions. Before I start, here is the inspirational boxed version. This was a genuine Kodak model and must have cost a fortune then.

              

I have admired the looks of the B for years since seeing a beautiful red one for sale at the old Buckingham Movie Museum – well out of my reach in those days. I’ve never seen one like it since; they usually look black. This current one is that brown/bronze/maybe a bit of red colour I’ve seen on other Kodaks, but it has mostly darkened almost to black.

               

It is one of the most complex and fiddly machines I’ve ever met – no wonder it cost so much. Introduced in 1928, it didn’t cost too much less than a Ford Model A car of the time, and once the Depression hit ……… It’s not just the ground-breaking auto threading; the entire machine is a mass of little bits of mech and complications. The lens pivots up and over to face backwards above its usual position. There is no drive belt, the motor seems to be coupled mechanically. There is a kettle element vertically in the lamphouse (presumably to drop the voltage for the lamp) as well as a rheostat to control brightness, with an ammeter to avoid overdoing it. And there are bits of chrome everywhere, big, medium, tiny, and of variable quality of finish – some of the larger piece like the guides around the claw housing have very thin chrome. The side plate covering the claw mech is held on by a single chrome knob, plus several registration pins. To avoid loss of the knob, it has a fixing to let it swing away. The plate itself houses the pair of prisms that turn the light from the lamp – none of yer mirror rubbish here! The reflector mirror behind the lamp is housed in a separate assembly that also holds a condenser lens. The assembly can be easily removed for cleaning. There are little instruction plates with arrows etc all over the place. One could go on. And on.

Underneath, the wiring is a bit odd. In several places, wires have been joined together (once with several others), then taped up, then taped together with others.

Overall, it gives the impression it was just put together at least as much as designed to any overall plan. It is fiendishly difficult and fiddly to take apart even to the limited extent I did, or to re-assemble. Anyway, as I always say, a picture is worth a thousand words, so here are a few thou for you.

I have drawn the wiring diagram to try to reflect how the wires run physically thru the various apertures in the base, with insulation tape added in random colours as I went along, without any attempt at any meaningful colour coding. One always has to have a careful eye to wiring on such old machines as there is the risk of decay and shorts. However, the wires here seem to be of very high quality – a fairly thick, multi-strand element, with a cotton coating, then a rubbery layer and finally another layer of woven material. It seemed safe to re-use them wherever appropriate. I had to cut the leads to the motor rheostat in order to get the thing apart. With what I know now, I would have cut in a different place. As it is, I had to lengthen these wires to be able to make the connections. Thank goodness for heat-shrink. As an insulator, it is vastly better than the rubbish sold today as insulating tape, which is plastic with a bit of glue on it and which invariably unravels in a sticky mess within a short space of time. Good, old-fashioned fabric tape is far more durable – the stuff here still put up a fight even after 80 years. Heat shrink is also invaluable to stop those woven outer coverings unravelling without end. I apply the heat shrink on first, then trim the covering back to it. To do it afterwards can be almost impossible.

The motor rheostat has in all three wires to and from, where one would normally expect only two. Not being very electrical, I don’t really understand this. One wire goes to the slider. The other two go to one end of each of a pair of resistance mats. These mats seem to be wired together at the other end. While I had the rheostat out, I measured the resistance across each pair of wires (see wiring diagram). To complete the oddity, the slider operates on only one of the two mats.

The lamp is 50v 200w, with a standard pre-focus type base. I have come across one or two of these and could never figure what they were for. There is a variant of the 200B that also used 50v 200w, but that of course has a Pathé T base.

Kodatoy      

This don't really belong here but in toys, but they are mostly 9.5 so I put iy here as well.

            

Here is an unadorned Kodatoy, with the separately-available 400' extension arms alongside. It really is what it claims to be, ie a toy, but I like its quirky looks. I also have one someone has, for some reason, gone to town on, with a mahogany base with built-in tilt control, various switches and a threading light - a full-size incandescent bulb - with a sea-shell shaped reflector-cum-shade. 

Kodak "C" and "D"

  

This rather odd pic shows  a "C" in it's case (it's just a square steel box, leatherette covered, with a handle, missing on mine, but standard type, (I acquired it empty years ago as it was in very good condition) and the rather more refined "D" at the top. Although the C and D are very similar, there are a number of differences. The most important is the lamp; the C consumes 150w with a 100w lamp. The D uses 350w with, presumably, (not got one in mine) a 300w lamp. This in turn necessitates a proper fan with air ducted towards the lamphouse. The other changes are minor or cosmetic; the D has no rewind handle, power rewinding being provided. The outer skin of the lamphouse is a much more attractive perforated metal affair, rather than the nasty wire affair of the C, and is a nice bronze colour rather than Model T Ford black. This perforated pattern is extended to the motor speed control housing and a neat little cover over the top of the mech. In the C (well, mine, at least) the mech is just open. It's only a 0.5in. slot between two steel plated that form the main frame. The speed control itself is a rheostat on the D; the C has what seems to be one of those carbon compression jobbies. The only other difference I've spotted is the threaded storage hole the D has for the lens. There are two different patterns of gate spring on my two C's; one is simply a loop of spring steel, the apparently later version, which is also on the D, uses an arm with a coil spring.

I have three different motors between three machines. One C has a Westinghouse, made in Springfield, showing signs of Mazac spalling. The other is from the North East Electric Co of Rochester. It has brushes at 90 degrees to each other rather than opposite; I can't recall ever seeing such a thing before. Sadly, one of the wires is broken off so far inside I can't fix it. The D has a Delco, again Rochester. The next page covers the Kodascope L

Kodascope L   

At the last Ealing Fair, I bought a Kodascope L. Now, as you may recall, I don't much like Kodak machines, but this one was in lovely condition (with a nice box) and looked as though it had hardly been used. And indeed, it quite obviously not been used for a long time as the motor was seized up solid and the mech was pretty stiff and the belts were pretty trashed. That's caveated this emptor well and truly.  We live and re-learn. Now, a projector that ent bin used for possibly decades needs oil, and not just the occasional dribble as per handbook. In all that time, oil and bearings and felt pads and oiling systems will have dried out and need replenishing before any oil gets to where it is actually needed. But none of that worked and I had to face a fairly extensive dismantling to get to the seat of the trouble. Naturally, I thought of you lot out there and took some pix for you.

          

Here are views of the machine with the major covers removed. Note the separate fan (the machine is designed for lamps up to 750w) and the fact that the motor speed control has to be unscrewed to get the back off. The claw mech (Pic3) seems very compact; there is a very small cam behind the front pivot.


In order to get at the motor, I had to unscrew the mains input plug, the motor and lamp switches and of course the securing bolts coming up from below. Then came the really nasty bit. On top of the motor sits a bracket with guide holes for the tubes of the oiling system. Four tubes come down from the main (felt-filled) reservoir above the top sprocket. They pass into the bracket then onwards into extension tubes with weird bends to the two motor bearings and the fan ditto. Not too hard to take apart but it's going to be a nightmare to put back - there is very restricted space in which to work.

               

So here we see the motor successfully(?) removed along with the switches and mains socket. This, incidentally, is a right-angled jobbie, with two pins at the back for (presumably) mains input (110v as it's American) and a socket to the front. Better not get things the wrong way round and end up with two live pins. The motor, naturally, turns out to be one of those internal-brush types, shown in Pix 2 & 3. Not only is it impossible to change brushes without dismantling the motor, but the brush springs are loose and held in place by the respective wires, stiffened with solder, passing thru holes in the brush channels. I hate this system. Worst of all, you can only access the other end of the motor by removing the brushes,springs and wires, then the frame on which they are mounted so as finally to be able to release the through bolts holding the cap on. Guess which end the root of the trouble was?


I found that the bearing at this other end of the motor was seized almost solid onto the armature shaft. I knocked it out, thereby pushing the bearing out of its housing because it was so reluctant to leave the shaft.

          

Pic 1 shows the result, Pic 2 what it should look like and Pic 3 the motor winding as stripped out. I managed to get the bearing back in, tho' it will never be quite the same, but first I had to sand down (fine wet and dry) both the shaft and the bore of the bearing to get a free-running fit. I had to do a bit of the same at the other end too. Then it was the laborious process of re-assembly. If you go back to Pic 3 of the second row of pix in this piece, you can see some brass spacers that support the brush frame. When I re-assembled, I had to replace these with slightly longer ones or else the brushes did not actually run on the commutator in a proper position. Who knows why?
All of this effort was, of course, with no knowledge of whether all this would work - I thought it more than likely that the motor winding had been cooked by successive efforts to make it run while it was jammed. So I decided to check it out before re-installing the motor. It actually ran, but lots of alarming smoke appeared. I kept stopping in case something really terrible was happening. By the time I took this photo, which anyway gives only a hint of what the smoke was actually like, it had reduced quite a bit.



I can only guess what was happening; maybe the oil etc with which everything was liberally coated was burning off. However, when I looked closely the source seemed to be the commuttor, which had a twin ring of sparking round it. I wonder if I put one of the brushes back in the wrong way wound, so that it has to be burnt in again to the correct shape. Whatever, I am not impressed by the performance of the motor and doubt its ability to drive a very stiff mech. Only a qualified success, therefore, and I still have a hefty re-installation job to do. 

 I did finally manage to get the Kodascope Model L back together, but it was a struggle and the result was not very satisfactory - the mech and drive are still very stiff and it is not really clear to me why. The episode has re-kindled my old dislike of Kodascopes (apart from the Kodatoy) and given me good reason. This machine was clearly not intended to be dismantled - that ridiculous hard-plumbed oiling system for a start - and there are too many areas that don't come apart enough for decent access. In accordance with what I am coming to regard as the norm for 16mm the machine is far more complicated than it needs to be for the job it has to do and the medium with which it is working. One could achieve results of equal quality from a far simpler and less bulky machine - I simply cannot accept that so much machine and so much expense was actually justified except as a money-making exercise.      

   More recently, I looked at two Kodascope Model K machines, one a plain K and the other a K-75. The plain K responded OK without much work but it and particularly the K-75 needed the application of a bit of brute force. This was supplied in the case of the K by removing the inching knob and latching a cordless drill onto it to remind the mech how to turn. The K-75 got a more manual approach as my cordless wasn't big enough for the inching knob wot I couldn't be bothered to remove (it uses one of those transverse pins to secure it to the shaft and they can be a nightmare to knock out), so I used a drill chuck from my lathe, mounted on a taper thingy, which was big enough. Neither of these machines has done anything to remove my dislike of Kodascopes in general, being very much like the L which gave me so much trouble a year or two back. One of them had rotted insulation on one of the wires to the motor speed control. This extended right back to the motor casing and it was simply not worthtrying to take the motor out and seeing what could be done. I settled for re-insulating the offending wire with heat-shrink and then dripping liquid rubber insulation (after these pix were taken) onto the point where it passes thru the motor casing.

                                                                        

This is a Kodak Sixteen 20, loaned by Pat Moules. It's in virtually mint, unused condition and, for a marvel, so is the box - these so rarely survive in really good condition.