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Parent Category: Multi-Gauge Topics

Category: Looking After

Restoration

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RESTORATION

 

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This is a huge subject, so please excuse if it gets a bit disjointed, if not outright rambling and repetitive. It is also a work in progress and I hope to add to it as time goes by. I suppose the first question is whether or not to restore. In the antique world, it is considered bad to clean up furniture etc and remove the patina it has acquired with time. But vintage motor cars can be restored to within an inch of their lives, with new everything, provided its authentic. Projectors, like cars, have mechanical parts which may need repair or replacement; they need oil, so get dirty easily and need to be cleaned. And there is the issue of electrical safety and problems over getting lamps. So where do we draw the line? (Were talking basically older machines here, not later plastic jobbies). Unless we can figure out some ground rules, projectors are never going to take on the status or value that I think they merit as antiques.

I think that the primary commandment is Thou shalt not bodge. That is to say, do not make changes away from the original other than exceptionally. If you must change something, do it in a sympathetic way, don't damage or alter the original, do it in such a way that it could be restored to original condition if desired. Above all, do not throw any of the original parts away. Don't mutilate; it is usually possible to work with what is there, or make a duplicate and mutilate that, rather than the original. Especially unacceptable in my view is vandalistic damaging of a projector, hacking bits off or making holes, just to satisfy some desire for an extra feature or modification, and leaving the thing looking a mess. If it can't be done well, don't do it. Do not re-paint unless you can do it well and never try to do it by just pointing a paint spray at it just as it stands or, even worse, painting by hand. I have seen appalling examples of the bodger's art and I am finding myself more and more enraged by the sheer crass stupidity and incompetence of it.

There are no doubt those who would argue that it is their projector and they have every right to do as they please with it. That is not true in Nerdistan; here, bodgery is a high crime and misdemeanour and the NBPU (Nerdistan Bodgery Prevention Unit) will escort any offenders to the border - they are not welcome here. And by the same token, others have every right to castigate bodgers, and to point out that, as with classic cars, the owner of a projector is simply the current curator; he can expect only to use it and pay for its upkeep, with no thought of reward, and to pass it on in due course. OK, so there are common or garden machines where we can allow some latitude, but a decent machine, where availability is limited, should be treated with due respect.

As examples of what I would find acceptable, see Big Brother 1 or the piece on the KOK lamphouse under Reporting in the 28mm section. I have done a fair bit to my 17.5 Home Talkie, but the only non-reversible changes are a hole for a lamp switch and a hole for a socket to supply power to a fan (even these might be reversed at a pinch). Everything else is done by working with the grain, so to speak, eg the solar cell fits on part of the original mirror bracket without changing it at all. Anything that is done should be declared, as are bits of restoration done to antique ceramics etc. Making new holes should be avoided in nearly all instances.

So what generally could be considered acceptable? I think a high standard of routine cleanliness should be de rigeur. Metal polish for plated parts, car polish for painted parts (but not crinkly finishes of any kind - you get white stuff stuck in the creases. Use some common sense!). A patina of age is not acceptable on a working machine (I think static display machines are not worth it unless there is extreme rarity and restoring function is impossible); film needs to be kept clean and so does the projector to avoid possible damage. Touching in odd chips of paint is, I think, wrong. Its almost impossible to do it well, and its a bit of a cheat. If things are really bad, sanding down and respraying is preferable. I did this on one of my KOKs, where large areas of paint had peeled away because of changes in the aluminium (or Mazac?) casting. Many projectors suffer from discolouration or rust on the lamphouse, where heat has damaged the paint. Respraying this with a (matching!) heat resistant paint is a good idea. One area I'd like to explore one day is re-plating metal parts - you can get kits to do nickel, for example. Much work and expense tho, but a job well done would be quite acceptable (vintage cars again).

Baby Lamp Adapter

Changing the lamp and power supply can be OK if done sympathetically. By this I mean try to do a lamp conversion that retains the same outward appearance and could be restored to original. I think the ideal way is to make a unit that fits in the existing lampholder, eg smash up an old, defunct lamp and fix things to its base to support a new lamp. This way you use the original circuitry, too. I have actually managed to make a unit that fits into a Baby lampholder and takes a tungsten halogen lamp. 6v 10&20W and 12v ditto will all fit. It relies on me having found a batch of tiny holders for these small lamps, and some fiddly work. OK, OK, I'll go and do a picture, just talk amongst yourselves for a bit.

The lampholder is a neat push fit into a bit of standard brass tube, which in turn is ditto into a Baby lamp socket. What I do is to cut one wire off completely and shave one side of the lampholder to just expose the outside of the contact. A blob of solder on this, carefully filed to the exact height, makes a good contact with the side of the brass tube. The other lead is cut off short and soldered to a very short length of thin screwed rod (studding). This is just long enough to pass thru the small circular insulating bush shown here, and is held in place by a nut, forming the second contact. I usually solder over this a bit to help stop it undoing. Voila! It works best in later Babies where there is a screw to retain the lamp, but it will work as just a push fit. I am working on the assumption that the small exposed area of plastic is not going to get hot enough to melt! Now, if anyone can find a source of these little lampholders, were in business. (Now found a new batch, so if anyone needs one made.... for a fee, of course.)

Here are a couple more examples, for the Super Vox (we don't care about burning QI lamps upside down or sideways, do we?) and for any medium pre-focus machine. OK, so they're maybe a bit crude, but it would no doubt be possible to make it neater but, hey, it's out of sight and fulfils the main criterion; it doesn't change the projector. Incidentally, does anyone know why the commercially available holders for QI lamps are huge, cumbersome and downright unhelpful, eg by having the fixing holes at a strange angle to the lamp pins? There must be a better way - has anyone anything to offer about DIY bases?

Where were we? Probably not really wise to use electric fires, aka external resistances, to drop voltage (less of a problem if your natural power supply is 110v). Try to fit a tranny in the resistance case; if you can't do this without damage, just put it on one side. I don't think, however, that resistances are going to add greatly to the value of a projector. I don't think internal or integral motor speed control resistances are too bad, but because of the risk from these and as a matter of good practice, fitting an earth lead to your projector is essential. I prefer my projectors to have an earth whenever at all possible - several nasty experiences when I acted as earth myself have made me cautious. At the same time, I don't like messy adaptations or excessive changes to original machines. This arrangement I've just fitted to a Bolex DA seems discreet enough, one hole in the projector, a 4mm socket and banana plug.

What else. Internal wiring may need to be changed where there is the risk of electrical shorting or a dangerously live chassis. I have just found some heat resistant sheathing exactly like that oily/waxy fabric based stuff you so often find - great for keeping up appearances, even if a conventional wire is inside it. Modern lenses, being coated, are usually significantly better than old ones (optics seems to be one of those areas where the old ways were not better. As mentioned elsewhere, Terry Vacani does lens cleaning/re-assembling - details on request). Just keep the old one for display and use the new to show film. I don't need to tell you not to do daft things like re-boring the lens holder, do I? Extension arms are fine, provided (as usual) that the original state can be restored. One extreme example I have come across is Spectos. Colin Loffler transplanted 9.5mm parts from an old, worn machine into a barely used 8mm machine. As the 8mm machine would otherwise just be dumped in most cases, this seems on the outer edges of OK. There is somewhere a pic of this machine, now mine.

Amplifiers are a tricky area for me. I can't do amplifiers; I have often simply bypassed an old amp with a photo-diode fed into an external amp. I suppose ideally one should seek to retain the original in working order wherever possible; as ever, do not throw anything away whatever else you do. One thing that is probably worth doing from a safety point of view is eliminating the arrangement often found on older machines whereby a high voltage passes down the speaker cable to an energised speaker. Original or not, I don't think we can justify keeping such things.

Of course, much of this does not apply if you are dealing with a projector that has already been bodged, but which you deem worth saving - KOKs and other rare machines usually. This does not mean carte blanche to do the bizarre; just try to get it as near as possible back to what it should be. I have even had complex gears made to replace a bodged job. I have just been dealing with a bodge-fixing; I will write it up later. Have I mentioned the vital importance of keeping a good photographic record of anything you do so you can write it up for my website? I use a 3m pixel camera, several years old so well out of date, but more than adequate for website photos as I hope you will agree. Its really simple to get pix onto the computer. You do need a modicum of care with backgrounds to your photos.

I would like to share thoughts as much as possible on restoration techniques and materials. Please send me any useful stuff. Things I have found useful include Hammerite spray paint - the silver-grey hammered finish is a decent match for the finish on many machines. The smooth black satin finish likewise. I used to be v. bad at spray painting; less so now, because I finally learned the basic lesson; thin coats, don't try for complete coverage all at once; it will run. The other tip I offer is one I got from a magazine once. I have a moderate size cardboard box (18inches square?), open on one side, with a hole at the opposite side which takes the nozzle of an old vacuum cleaner This crude painting booth system brings a miraculous reduction in the amount of spray going all over everything else you own. Before I had this, I basically couldn't do spray painting at all - too messy, even in the garage. I use spray cans a lot even tho' I have a compressor and airbrush, simply because in a multi-coat game, you have to clean up an airbrush between each coat, which is a real drag. If anyone comes across good colour matches available in a can, please share. Ian Green gave me a nice one; Vauxhall Brazil Brown LV95 is pretty much exact for the 17.5 Home Talkie. Also Ford Rio Brown.

I have been using something called Barrel Paint for lamphouses it is a satin finish so not too out of place, and is supposed to withstand temperatures of up to 500 degrees F. If my projector ever gets hotter than that, I shall be heading for the hills rather than watching the paint finish for damage. I got the barrel paint from a supplier of car restoration tools and stuff at www .frost.co.uk . Their catalogue is small but to drool over. 

One of my favourite things is a substance known in our house as hamster-cage fixing stuff. When the kids were small, we once looked after a young friend's hamster. Almost at once, a vital part of the cage door broke - one of the weld joints came apart. I used this miracle stuff to fix it. The stuff is called Milliput and its a two-stick modelling putty, available in many model or craft shops; there are doubtless other names for similar stuff (I think Frost (website above) do a variant). You just knead together equal amounts of each stick, then mould it to whatever shape you need. Once set hard, it can be sanded, drilled, even tapped, and painted. I have just been using it to repair a couple of plastic lamphouse covers - I'll do a write-up and some pix later. Altho it makes no such claim, it's actually a decent insulator and so ideal for repairing obsolete/unobtainable Bakelite plugs etc. Properly done, the repair can be painted over and made invisible (come to think of it, I could maybe use this in place of the insulating bush in my Baby lamp conversion). I have also just picked up a tip from Colin Loffler about using small steel pins, in drilled holes in the original material, as a core over which to put the Milliput, to provide greater strength. He does phonographs and restores them so has useful knowledge. He suggests paper clips, using "u"-shaped pieces into two holes for maximum strength. If its not already clear, Im a great believer in not re-inventing the wheel I like to find good ideas from other people and steal them. 

Maplin has been one of my most useful suppliers, but they are increasingly moving out of components and useful stuff towards the gadget/toy end of the market. Radiospares as was, now known simply as RS (hhtp://rswww.com yes I know its an odd address), do a wider range but do charge for small orders. A particularly useful substance Maplin does have is heat-shrink plastic sleeving. (Recently saw some in one of the big DIY stores, too.) This is ideal for covering solder joints; it can also help strengthen wires by attaching to the component as well as the wire in some cases. I have also used small bits say 1cm long - to stick two wires together for tidiness in place of cable clips or the thin black string you sometimes find. They also recently started doing motor run condensers; 8 or 10 mf will do a Vox. 

There is virtually no-one left in the UK doing much in the way of projector repairs. The problem I guess is that the labour cost of doing anything is so high that customers are horrified by anything approaching a realistic charge and the game is just not worth the aggro it brings. I do occasionally do work for friends as a favour, but its much too time-consuming to do much of it, as I end up neglecting all my own projects. One of the problems is that virtually everything I do is new or prototyping, eg I have never before had to repair plastic lamphouse tops and had to figure out how best to do it, and that's just a small example. I often end up having made false starts or mistakes and having to do it over. Fortunately, I like (almost) nothing better than tinkering with projectors. 

I have a Zeiss Icon machine with the two spools side by side under the mech. One problem is the finish like so many machines, there is a sort of lacquer over the black paint. This has deteriorated with time and is now patchy, dulled and vaguely sticky and impossible to get to look good. That Loffler man (again) suggested methylated spirits; this does seem to remove the lacquer, but also some paint. Whether this is the meths or just paint that has over time drifted away from its partner metal so that this new challenge has broken the remaining bonds, revealing the shallowness of their residual commitment to each other and so leading to divorce (poetic metaphor, eh?) is unclear. Still experimenting. Can anyone contribute experience? Update. Have now finished stripping the lacquer off the Zeiss, using both meths and surgical spirit. On the main casting, paint is not affected; some effect on the parts that are just painted steel, but it does seem limited to areas of poor finish. A note of warning, however; on Bolex machines the top lacquer coat is the colour coat. The meths will remove it, leaving you with a very odd looking beast. As with anything like this, test on a small out-of-sight bit first. (The other thing about the Bolex PA/DA is, even if some twit hasn't over-lamped it at some point, the lamphouse discolours and/or rusts. Does anyone know a colour match for that strange Bolex shade?)

Some pictures now of the Zeiss. I had to take it apart as it would not go, so did a bit of rewiring as well.

 

Reading from left to right, we have before and after pix re lacquer. The dull finish is before any polishing; actually not bad in its own right. You can see I worked round a little arrow transfer - the meths would no doubt have removed it. Cotton buds were a blessing in this job. Then motor/lamp/switch wires, using the new heat resist stuff I mentioned. The fault lay in the switch. In the off position, it comes to rest against part of the fibre body of the switch, with some force. Over time, this had worn a slight dent into the fibre, which was stopping the contact from moving when the switch was operated. The switch seemed to work from the outside, but on the inside nothing happened. Then we have the motor itself, the motor resistance, again re-wired, and finally a view of the innards from the back with the motor removed. At back right, in the hole where the motor was, you can just see a little device, which links thru to a button on the outside. It appears to be a commutator cleaner; there is a pad of felt which can be brought into contact with the commutator by pressing on the button outside. You can also see at the bottom of the main shutter a gauze centrifugally-operated heat filter. Not sure I understand why you want a filter to come into operation only when the machine is running, as appears to be the case. Maybe I'm getting something wrong.

Will report further when I've finished. This may be some time, as I am expecting imminent delivery of exciting new (to me) projectors. (See 16mm Silent for a pic of the re-assembled machine).

Packing

I've bought a number of projectors on eBay and had to have them shipped from elsewhere in the UK or even from France. I have come to realise that nobody seems to have the faintest idea of how to pack properly; everything arrives with some form of damage due to poor packing. It is not enough just to wrap a bit of bubble wrap around, or tape the original cardboard box shut. Bear in mind also that a close-fitting box is no use. It takes rather more, although it's actually quite simple.

First, there must be padding between every side (and top and bottom - essential!) of the projector and the box it's going into. However solid the box, if the projector is in direct contact with any part of it, there is a risk of damage. The sharper the corners, the heavier the machine, the more delicate it is, the greater the amount of padding needed.

Second, the padded projector must not be able to move within the box or other container - extra padding should be stuffed into any vacant areas. We are looking for firm but not rigid here.

Third, any particularly delicate bits like glass, protuberant (sticky out) bits like spool arms, or just bits that might drop off given half a chance, should be secured in some way or removed and packed as separate items. They can go into the same box, but they must be padded from both the box and the rest of the machine.

To understand this, try to imagine what will happen if the box is dropped from, say, two feet in the air, onto a hard surface, eg a floor(!). While floors are very useful for stopping things that are dropping, they can deliver quite a jar in so doing. If any part of the projector or other contents is touching the sides of the box, the force of the impact will just pass directly to the projector. However, if there is padding between the box and the projector, that force will be absorbed. If the projector is able to move because it is not padded enough, it can travel on impact and maybe hit the side, or get jarred and so cause damage. There is also the risk that the continual jolting will make the projector move, and scrape against other things and rub paint off, or even damage the packing, opening the way to potentially much more serious problems.

This basically means that your box needs to be rather bigger than the one you first thought of. But it's the only way to be reasonably confident parcels you send will arrive intact.

I do not know why carriers, of all kinds, it matters not who or how much they cost, are totally incapable of handling packages with any measure of gentleness but, believe me, they will ALL sling your package about. It's actually much harder work when handling something heavy to put it down gently rather than just banging it down - you just try it. Your average delivery driver, pushed by managers for time, is not going to go the extra mile for you. Assume the worst and pack accordingly. There has to be a niche market here for a carrier who will actually take care of your stuff.

Power Supplies

You will know that the leads we use to go from mains to an appliance using the Europlug system actually have a 13amp plug at one end and a Euro socket at the other. The bit inside the appliance is the plug. It is possible to get these plugs in a trailing, re-wireable form. I dislike projectors that have long fixed leads that you cannot unplug (Elfs, for instance, or the H), as the wires are a great nuisance and get in the way. I have tried hacking holes in the side of projectors and fitting the usual Europlug receptacle, but it's an awful chore and does alter the machine. What I have now taken to doing, therefore, is to cut the lead from the projector fairly short, and fit a trailing Europlug to it. I can then plug it in using any old 13amp/Euro lead I have around. At cpc, they are cheap enough to do this to any and all machines.

As a variant on this theme, I have a standing problem of needing a 110v supply for many of my projectors. Obviously, it's important to avoid mixing 240 and 110!. I have tried fitting transformers with a chassis-mounting Euro socket for the 110v output and using trailing/re-wireable Europlugs for the 110v projectors, but then there is the risk of mixing the two up. This might all sound confusing - in fact, even I am confused here - but if you look at the relevant bits of kit on the cpc site, all should become clear. I may have to stick with my old method of using 3-pin in-line mains connectors for 110v.

 

 

Looking After

 

Details

Parent Category: Multi-Gauge Topics

Category: Looking After

Advanced C & R

 Looking After 

 

(BIT MORE) ADVANCED C& R

Splicing and Repair on 9.5

 

1. I have been having something of a rapprochement with cement splicing, with which I have in the past had little truck. I am not really sure quite why. Maybe partly because the CIR-type tape splicer, designed with magnetic stripe in mind, does not fully cover both sides of the join, which feature is intended to leave the stripe uncovered. This is not really relevant on 9.5, and I feel it gives a slightly temporary air to a join, but it can readily be overcome. Although tape does not, in my experience, dry out if it is in the body of the film, it might do so if it is near the front end. The front is very prone to drying anyway, and this often causes problems with leader and titles becoming brittle and cracking and, indeed, with cement splices, which warp, especially if made in the traditional manner with far too much cement. Whatever the reason, I have been using cement increasingly for permanent attachment of leader in particular. However, Chris Bird has made the excellent point that, even if tape does dry out at the front of a film, it is easy to replace and no frames are lost as they would be with cement splices. It would therefore be better to use tape than cement at the start. I think he's right and I will henceforth follow his advice.
2. Tape is, of course, unmatched in its ability to repair, and I have saved films that would otherwise have lost valuable frames of soundtrack, or would have broken on projection or been completely unprojectable. More on this below.
3. To revert to cement. I have had to learn how to do cement splicing in a way that seems to me correct. I am open to debate on this as it is something with which I have had little success in the past. It is painfully and appallingly obvious that I have not been alone in this problem if you look at much 9.5.
4. It seems to me that there are two fairly fundamental problems with cement splicing:-

a). We do not have professional quality splicers. This means that they are unlikely to be aligned with any great accuracy or repeatability, or to scrape or cut the film terribly well or precisely, are impossible to adjust, make oversize splices, allow cement to leak from the join, allow film to slip and move and etc and etc. You only have to look at those beautiful, clean, narrow splices you sometimes see at reel joins in 900-footers to see what a professional splice is like. We can't hope to match that, but we can do a lot better - I think I really mean infinitely better - than at least 95% of all 9.5 cement splices I have ever seen, and I have seen thousands.

b). The film itself is completely inconsistent. Bear in mind it was mostly made from 35mm slit into three. Width can vary, as can the precise location of the sprocket holes in relation to the edge of the film. There is also quite a bit of 16mm pitch stock around, or leader perforated from 16. The difference between the pitch of 9.5 and that of 16 is small (to be precise, 16mm is 0.3" or 7.62mm and 9.5 is 7.54mm), but it becomes significant when joining film in a splicer. There is also, of course, the problem of shrinkage, both as between different films, between film and leader and even within the same reel of film. A splicer is not usually adjustable, and has to pick some arbitrary value between the different realities. If a film is too badly shrunken, it can be impossible to get it on the splicer without causing damage by stretching the film over the pins.

5. There are many different cement splicers and they don't all make a splice in the same way. Where the cut is made and the overlap and amount of emulsion to be scraped off can vary. This can be a problem when re-making a dried-out splice without cutting out any moreframes. My current favourite is the Muray shown here, tho it does have its faults and idiosyncrasies - the springing of the upper leaves is far too strong, for one thing. I like the fact that it makes a fairly narrow join, and I like the way it provides for scraping the emulsion on one side of the join and the base on the other side. This extra scraping will, I hope, lead to better adhesion and a slightly thinner and therefore less obtrusive splice.
6. One curiosity with slightly shrunken film is that it seems to matter which of the two pins that will hold it I put a piece of film on first. One way round, the film definitely goes on easier and with less straining of the sprockets.
7. One of the biggest problems I (and from observation many others) have had with splices is getting them aligned properly so there are no protruding bits at the side of the film to catch on spools or gates etc. I can think I have it lined up, but when I open up the splicer to remove the film, the splice may be way out of line. I have had to resort to placing both ends of the join on the lower plates and manually aligning them before closing the upper leaves to hold the film. (This is sometimes impossible to get quite right because of differing lateral placement of sprocket holes in different stock, eg when attaching leader.) Even then, I was getting it wrong and in the end I was forced to examine the alignment thru a projector lens to get it right. This may, however, be due to my astigmatism and so not affect others. Despite all my care, I still often have to lightly trim the edges of the film at the splice to ensure a smooth join. I keep a sharp craft knife to hand for this. This does not mean, however, that you can correct gross misalignment in this way.
8. The other big issue, of course, is the application of cement. I have settled on using Agfa Cinecol, mostly because it has a brush that I feel comfortable with - each to their own on this, I suspect. And I have painfully learned that the only way to avoid a horrible messy splice seems to be to use very, very little cement. I scrape the brush on the inside of the neck of the bottle half a dozen times, which also flattens it out a bit. I try not to touch the edge of the upper leaf of the splicer on the scraped side of the join, because then the cement seems to flow under the splice by some sort of capillary action and mark the base side near the join. So I simply place the brush on one side of the sprocket hole and draw it outwards rather than along, repeat for the other side and maybe a quick dab in the centre. I try to avoid brushing across the joint or making repeated contact with the film as this seems to lead to less than satisfactory splices.
9. One thing I do, almost out of faith, is to press the joint together as hard as I can for about 10 seconds after making it. I do this in the not-terribly-well-substantiated belief that this helps to press air out and ensure full film/cement/film contact right across the join.
10. What I get when all goes well is a reasonably narrow splice, with no air gaps showing where there is no cement, and no bare area from having scraped too much emulsion off. Even now, I am still doubtful that I have actually made a good and durable splice - surely it needs more cement! I would like to hear other people's views, experience, favoured splicer etc.
11. Because I am concerned to preserve films as much as possible, I try to re-join rather than re-make existing splices wherever possible and so save two full frames. A splice may have substantial dried out areas and be obviously heading for separation in the near future but otherwise reasonable. I find that inveigling some more cement into the join can work and avoid any further cuts. As long as some of the cement is still attached, there are no problems of alignment and the gap is usually so narrow that capillary action draws the cement in. I rely on the fact that cement does not take on the emulsion side and if at all possible work from this side. I'm afraid I simply use my fingers to squeeze the film together - as long as one avoids getting any cement on the base side, or on those fingers that will touch the base, it is usually possible to avoid leaving cement fingerprints and greasy marks can just be cleaned off. Sometimes the only way to get cement in is from the base side, but even here accuracy and speed can avoid the worst effects. You just need to practice a lot. Sometimes I just tape over a dodgy cement splice if I think it will not re-cement properly - I have felt much more comfortable about this sort of thing since reading in a Kodak film care manual that overlapped tape joins are perfectly acceptable in 35mm practice.

Tape Repair Methods

15. You need to get the tape up against the pin, but not so as to curve round it, as it will then end up partly covering the sprocket hole. There may be uses for a different size of tape; on 17.5 I use 9mm and 15mm depending on the specific requirement.
16. Edge splits, rough patches, nicks etc can easily be repaired by drawing the tape only a short distance across the film, then making a freehand cut with a craft knife at the rear to provide a similar-sized wrap-round. This is one area where a wrap really is needed. In cases like this, where the leading edge of the tape will actually be used, fingers are going to leave marks. I use a very narrow screwdriver to catch the sticky side of the tape, with a finger on top for grip. This still leaves a mark on the tape but not as bad as the mark and grease of fingers. I have found that the tape originally supplied with the CIR marked permanently. I use PEC tape; marks usually vanish when the tape is pressed down. By the by, I really cannot do any of this intricate work in gloves, which get bits on the tape anyway.
17. As with cement splicing, sometimes film has shrunk so much that to get it even over the pins either of the splicing point can damage the sprocket holes, let alone the outer pins as well. This, of course, applies only in repair work, not when you have cut the film for a splice. I find I have to fudge - I fit the film to only one pin and get the tape on as best I can. I then lower the film presser strip (that thing hinged at the same place as the punch head) but insert the tip of my finger to prevent it going all the way down onto the film and so forcing the sprocket holes over any of the other pins. I then carefully operate the punch head to pierce the tape without pressing the film itself down onto the other pins.

I've tried another couple of tricks with the tape splicer. I have a sound feature where the first three reels suffer from splitting, especially at the start, ie the titles. The splitting is strongly biased to the non-sound-track side. The second part is fine. Never one to give up if I think a film can be made to run, I am experimenting with applying tape along the length of the film, covering just the area between the sprocket holes and the edge. I am not attempting any wrap-round; I apply the tape with the film lying on a flat film can, with the bulk of the tape sticking to the can. I then trim off the excess tape with a craft knife against the edge of the film. I'm surprised how simple this was, given the sort of problem one usually gets with long lengths of eg sellotape. A bit specialised, I suppose, but it might be useful.

The other trick is to ensure the soundtrack is nearest to you, then apply tape only up to the track. A freehand cut is then needed to give an wrap-round that does the same on the other side of the film. This is difficult both to judge and to cut straight; I'm considering the possibility of somehow fitting a strip of metal to the splicer at the right point to provide a cutting edge for this operation.

I am also experimenting with yet more ways of doing tape repairs to 9.5. I have come across a sound film which has several stretches of maybe a foot at a time, where the sprockets have all been "pulled", so that there are splits from each corner of the sprocket hole down about a third of the way into the picture area. This is a frequent problem on 9.5 and, uncorrected, will just get worse and end up with unacceptably large cuts

I've been making even more changes to my 9.5 tape splicer. I was finding that with older, shrunken film, the pins were doing almost as much damage as I was repairing. The pins are no doubt set at standard spacing, and old 9.5 ent standard any more. So I knocked out the two outer pins (I kept them, of course) and this has made a great improvement. The only drawback I've found is that the film is sometimes reluctant to stay in the slot until you get the tape on it, but this is a small price to pay. out of the film and soundtrack.

I have therefore fitted a tape dispenser (holder made from old Meccano (TM)) at the front of my 9.5 splicer. With this, and the soundtrack at the back of the film channel, I can draw tape from the reel onto the film, stopping short of the soundtrack. I have made a bit of metal to fit at the front of the tape channel, sized to provide a cutting edge that will ensure the tape wrap-around also clears the soundtrack. It won't look too pretty on the screen, but it should save the soundtrack. This has involved removing the tape cutting blade, but you may recall I was already contemplating this.

I never seem to use the tape in its original position any more. Working from my new tape spool fitting at the front, I use a very slim jeweller's screwdriver to pick up the tape and place it on the film. By cutting at one place, I get a piece just the right size to wrap round and completely cover both sides of the film. By laying the tape short of the track on a sound film, and cutting at a different place, I can reinforce sprockets without covering the track. I've also more or less stopped using the film cutter, and just use scissors, since I always leave an overlap for splices - I hate floppy, bendy butt joins.

An Economy tape splicer for 9.5

I've been checking and repairing 9.5 films again. Some of you may recall the dicky fit I threw the last time I was doing this; I wrote about it in the Group 9.5 magazine. As before, I am appalled by the careless, even reckless damage I see. Because there will NEVER be any more 9.5 films on anything but the tiniest scale. So if we don't protect what weve got... 

This is why I am such a fervent advocate of tape for 9.5 in particular. Cement has its place, but the problem with cement is that you can only join, you cannot repair. Unless of course you use sprocket patches and my advice is:- DONT!. They are the invention of the Devil and it is rare for me to see a sprocket patch that is any good; usually they have involved spreading cement all around the patch, thus ruining the picture instead of saving it. What's the point? I'd rather cut. Many sprocket patches that I see have dried out anyway (as have many splices) and are ready to fall off. On the other hand, I have experience of tape patches lasting for 40 years without causing a problem. So I use tape extensively, and have found many ways of making runnable a film that would otherwise have to be heavily cut about or even dumped. I don't claim tape will do everything by any means, and it is far from an ideal solution, but it is a valuable tool in the armoury of the 9.5 collector. The problem is, Dr. Leo Catozzo now wants huge sums for his CIR tape splicers, when he can be bothered to make a batch. The last price I paid was £180 and I believe they are much more expensive now. I decided, therefore, to see if I could make an economy tape splicer, but using only readily available materials and tools, so that anyone can do it. You definitely need a file of a decent size, and a set of "rat-tail" files, cheap as chips and readily available on market stalls etc. The other really useful thing would be a drill in a stand, but it may be possible to manage even without that (but remember when drilling in metal it must be held tight in a vice for safety and that a spot of oil helps a lot). Other than that, just drills, screwdrivers, nuts and bolts, which the average householder will already have, or stuff that can be gotten from a DIY store. 

The big problem with using tape is punching the sprocket holes out afterwards. It is also helpful to have a means of aligning the film and getting the sprocket spacing right when making splices, tho this is less necessary for repair. Anything else, you can wing it. Now, making round holes is easy; making rectangular holes, certainly to the degree of accuracy we require, is much harder. I decided to start with a basic 9.5 splicer of a design which gave me an easy way to get my rectangular hole. I found that the splicer shown in the pictures has locating pins that are held in place by a large blob of solder. It takes time to melt, but eventually you can push the centre pin out, giving you a nice rectangular hole. A bit of cleaning up and judicious enlarging with the tip of a rats tail file and we have a hole of our target size, which is 1mm x 2.4mm. It is important to leave in place the other pins, and the flaps that hold down the film. 

The other vital component is a punch, again of about our target size (final size is trial and error by fitting it into the hole). I made this from a strip of steel about 3mm thick and 12mm wide the only slightly unusual material I used but which many DIY stores now stock. Here are two views, taken before final filing to finished size. As you can see, I filed from one side only to get to the required thickness, because

           

it was easier and probably more accurate. Final fitting involved shaving a bit off very carefully and trying it in the hole repeatedly.  

In order to use the splicer effectively, it needs to be fixed down to some sort of board, with provision for holding a roll of tape. Shown above is a tape holder I made earlier, from Meccano. I used nylon rod here, but a bit of broom handle, padded out if necessary with card, will suffice. Incidentally, it is vital to use tape that is completely clear; the CIR splicers used at least to come with a roll of what looked like sellotape and was very cloudy in appearance. However, fixing the splicer down is tricky as it has no mounting holes. It does, however, have a hole each end. I used a standard DIY angle bracket, cut to size and drilled to take a nut and bolt at the same height as the hole in the end of the splicer. A further nut against the end of the splicer can be tightened to hold it firmly. What you can't see is that I fixed a support under the central hole (with cutaways for the bits of tape punched out to escape) to avoid any risk of bending the bed of the splicer with repeated use.

               

The rest really is about mounting the punch to an arm. I used a spool arm from a Eumig P8 that had already made the supreme sacrifice by donating its transformer for a 9.5 lighting conversion, plus some lumps of wood and more angle brackets. I found two problems here. First, the arm may be too short or the wrong height or both, and so the punch doesn't enter the hole cleanly, because it is at an angle, travelling along an arc of a circle. The second thing is that its tricky to align the arm accurately enough and firmly enough. This could no doubt be done, but not without a lot more work. As long as you get a pretty close fit, there is sufficient flex in the arm mounting that you can push and pull to align the punch each time you use it without much problem. The materials used here include a threaded knob I got from Chronos, an unnecessary embellishment probably. I reckon it would be quite satisfactory simply to fit the punch into some sort of holder and just use it in the hand. Why don't you give it a go? I have deliberately kept all this as simple as I can, but there are obviously all sorts of improvements that might be made. I'ts up to you! (And I thought I'd better add a pic of the completething itself).

You can see lots of stuff about tape repairs in Care and Repair (if you go to the foot of that page, there is a link to a second page). Below are a few notes that may help if you have no experience of tape splicing. These cover many of the problems with sprocket holes that are encountered on 9.5, particularly where pairs of sprocket holes have one edge weakened, leaving a "chad" or sliver of film that can fall out on projection. Where the chad is still in place, tape reinforcement makes a strong repair and avoids repeated splicing and cutting. This is even more important with sound films, of course.

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Using the splicer 

1. Cut the film I use ordinary scissors leaving more than half of the sprocket hole on each half of the join. This gives a noticeable overlap,  which I think is essential. I don't think it is realistically possible to make successful butt joints, especially on shrunken and dried film. The film near the core of a cassette, or even the small cores on some reels, is so twisted it is quite impossible. To quote from the Kodak Book of Film Care "A butt tape splice is considered somewhat superior to an overlap tape joint only [my emphasis] because it is less noticeable (and possibly less noisy) on screen." The Book regards overlap splices as nothing unusual and in my experience they are at least as good as, and no more noticeable than, cement splices. 

2. Apply the tape. I mount the tape in front of the splicer and pull tape off its reel using a small-size jewellers screwdriver under it. This enables me to position the end of the tape at the far edge of the film, leaving no overhang. The screwdriver does not appear to leave a permanent mark (fingers would). The tape is then pressed down and is cut, using a single-sided razor blade or craft knife, along the surface of the splicer, as straight as possible. In time, you will wear a nice groove to follow. I guesstimate where the cut needs to be to give a full wrap-round. (I dont like the way the CIR splicer leaves an edge gap on one side, as tho for a non-existent mag track.) 

3. Remove the film from the bed and wrap the tape round, ensuring a close fit to the edge of the film. Trim any excess with a blade or knife; I find it best to keep one especially for this, as cutting on the bed of the splicer does blunt the blade. Increasingly often, I now just use the scissors again with care, the excess can be trimmed without cutting the film. 

4. Replace the film in the splicer, close all the film holders and punch. You may have noted that the CIR splicer has a long strip beneath the arm with the cutter and punch; this stops the film lifting up as the punch is raised. In this splicer, the centre film holder performs that task, as the punch passes thru it. I have left the punch completely square, but one could experiment with a slant across the width or even a V-shape of the CIR type. 

Repairs

 5. When making joins, any shrinkage of the film is naturally taken up in the join. When making repairs, however, the sprocket holes in shrunken film can be damaged if they have to be forced to fit over both pins on the splicer bed. With my CIR splicer, I have removed two of the four pins to avoid causing damage in this way. With this economy model, it may sometimes be preferable to use only one of the pins and not close the film holder over the other. Where we are dealing with intact film, there is no alignment problem. 

6. I usually apply the tape with one edge following the edge of a sprocket hole (usually one edge is damaged and not the other). The rest of the tape then more than covers the next sprocket hole. In this way, two sprockets can be reinforced at the same time, minimising on-screen visibility as one edge of the tape is masked off in the gate. This can be done working to the left or the right. I try to avoid taping over actual gaps where the sprocket hole has been enlarged, especially if there are several in a row. It looks horrid on the screen and ordinary tape is not designed for this. I sometimes overlap the tape over the offending hole from both sides to give a double layer of tape in an emergency (eg a nearly-vanished notched title). 

7. This technique can be applied to sound films so as to cover only the picture and not the soundtrack, which seems to me sensible. What I do is draw out enough tape to cover the picture and lay it on the film (sound track away from me). I then cut the film, as in 2 above, but at a different place, in the hope of missing the soundtrack again when the tape is wrapped round. 

8. The other main repair technique I use does not involve the punch. Edge tears can be covered by a short strip of tape wrapped round the edge. The splicer isn't strictly necessary but provides a helpful base to work on. 

9. If a cement splice is dried out and coming apart, it can be sufficient to just tape over it as tho' making a tape splice. This avoids cutting out any film. Sometimes it is enough to insinuate a bit of extra cement, with the help of capillary action, but if there is damage, eg cracking along a line where the scraper has cut in too deeply, the tape can avoid a cut.

 Looking After 

 

 

Details

Parent Category: Multi-Gauge Topics

Category: Looking After

Detailing a projector

Looking After

 

     DETAILING A PROJECTOR

 

Detailing is a term I first came across in the context of classic cars; it basically means a high-standard, minutely-detailed refurbishment/restoration that may start with a complete strip-down to nut and bolt level and even go beyond simply returning to as new condition by adding refinements. I am not necessarily suggesting this for projectors, although there are some that would be worth it, but a great deal can be done to produce a smart-looking, functional machine. (Brian Giles has done some amazing work with 28mm machines, way in advance of what follows, and I am trying to persuade him to write it up). What I mean is a thorough clean and polish, maybe accompanied by some careful sanding and painting, perhaps a replacement part or two, damage repair, re-wiring (preferably to more modern standards), a lamp conversion and, of course, restoring it to be able to show films, at least for demonstration purposes. I am sure I do not need to add that, as far as humanly possible, all this should be done without bodging, damaging or otherwise making permanent changes to the original. In fact, I do not understand why the restoration and presentation of projectors seems to have played virtually no part in our hobby.

But remember in all things the First & Second Commandments: 

1. Thou shalt not bodge.

2. Thou shalt not throw anything away. 

I was triggered to write about this by a recent projector acquisition, a 9.5mm Peerless. The same machine was also sold as the Triplico, the 9.5-only version continuing as the Triplico Junior, the Senior handling 8mm and 16mm, too. Its an unusual machine, not one I had seen before, and although dirty, a bit rusty in places and slightly battered, appeared to be more or less complete. Naturally, the first thing I did was to take it apart. Here I what I ended up with:-

 

                

 

The problems with it included the following:-

Lamphouse cap seized on, probably due to Mazac distortion in the lamphouse, and a bit rusty:

Mechanism cover, finished originally in nickel plate, quite severely corroded and pitted, lens jammed in place;

other plated parts corroded, principally sprocket retaining roller assemblies and spool spindles;

pins in projector end of spool arms, for locating arms in raised position, both broken off;

wiring deteriorating throughout;wires into motor, right up to where they disappear into the windings, had crumbling       insulation;

motor bearings had felt reservoirs which were completely dried out:

speed control made projector body live;

parts of gate corroded;

mechanism jammed (apparently the result of a Mazac crack in the main body casting)

paintwork; numerous spots where paint had been knocked off:

generally dirty and tired-looking.

You have to accept that a proper clean basically involves considerable stripping down and dismantling, although I tend to stop short at gear-boxes and similar unless I have to go in. Otherwise you simply cannot access all the corners and anything you can do will be let down by the bits you don't do properly. Ideally, one should record in writing and photographically each stage of the job, to make it easier to re-build; one can never be sure quite how long it will take or what other things might supervene to delay you. In a year's time, what now seems clear will be obscure. Being experienced (and a bit daft), I don't do this enough, but one thing I always do is to keep all the parts in pots, often different ones for different parts of the machine, so I know I have all in need in a defined place, however long it all takes.

Lets talk briefly about cleaning before we go any further. There are important pitfalls to watch out for. One of the most difficult things to clean is the crackle/wrinkle finish of so many older projectors, (which it seems is quite impossible to reproduce today) especially so when its not black. I have found that turps/white spirit actually tends to make things worse, often leaving a pale residue. Meths can remove the finish on some machines (I noticed this first on a Bolex G3), and one should be wary of all types of solvent. They may interact with the layer of oil and grease to make things worse. Metal and/or car polish are suitable ONLY for smooth surfaces - you can never get it out of the wrinkles. WD40 tends to be OK but is not going to deliver a really clean result. Even soap and water can have the same effect as turps, and abrasive cleaners such as Cif should only be used with extreme caution - they will remove paint. Literally spit and polish and sheer elbow grease seems to be best in many cases. Obviously an endless supply of clean rags  - old cotton sheets cut up are good - is essential. And I would very much welcome information on ideas anyone else has found to work. 

I have devised a way of cheating with old black wrinkle finish; if you can find a colour match, it could work with other colours. I must emphasise that this should not be undertaken lightly it is, after all, detracting from the originality of the piece and, as we know from the Antiques Roadshow, collectors often frown on this sort of thing. Having got my parts stripped down, I clean grease off with turps (yes, I know) and apply masking tape to all areas that do not need paint. Screw holes etc I fill with screwed-up masking tape. I then give a fairly LIGHT single coat of black satin-finish car aerosol paint (neither matt nor gloss seem to give very good results). This goes a long way to cover up dints etc, but without leaving the mess that spot application of paint to individual patches makes. It also brightens up the tired finish of the main areas, without affecting the look of the wrinkle finish. Parts that don't lend themselves to spraying can be brushed, using a small artists brush and some of the aerosol sprayed into a small receptacle. The paint is quite thin, so brush-marks are not an issue, certainly on wrinkle-finish (I aim to experiment one day with the light-grey finish one sometimes finds, which turns brown with oil exposure, which is impossible to clean and really ugly). Smooth paint finishes don't lend themselves to this approach quite as well; chips in the old paintwork are more noticeable and, of course, you have to achieve a much higher standard of finish if it is to look good.

I must emphasise that this will not give a durable finish; it is essentially a cosmetic exercise for a display model. One thing above all that you should NOT do is to spray without dismantling or masking. You will ruin the appearance and make dismantling difficult if someone else wants to do the job right. I have seen some dreadful examples of so-called re-painting. I have a Super Vox which someone has simply over-painted by hand, without dismantling, in hammer-finish Hammerite, leaving it patchy, blotchy and looking entirely wrong. Far, far better to do nothing than to bodge and leave things worse than when you started. But I digress. 

My plan, before that digression, was to work through the faults I listed earlier, explaining what I did, no doubt with other digressions along the way. So, revenons à nos moutons.

Lamphouse cap

There was nothing I could think of other than fairly brute force. I held the body of the lamphouse lightly in a soft-jawed vice, put a thick, flat bit of brass to the bottom edge of the rim of the cap, then 'it it wiv a 'ammer, being careful to direct the blows so that they pushed the rim up but didnt impact significantly on the body of the lamphouse; this being Mazac, and having obviously already distorted a bit, needs to be tret fairly gently. The cap is steel, so the softer brass should avoid messing it up too much. Proceeding gradually, turning the lamphouse repeatedly, I was eventually able to separate the two. As I have a lathe, I could do a bit of turning to avoid the long labour of manually sanding the inside of the cap to enlarge it so it would fit back on. As usual, the cap was a bit rusty and lacking in paint, due to exposure to the heat of the lamp. I also noticed that the finish of the metal under what was left of the paint was poor, not helped by the pitting left by the rust.

I decided therefore to experiment with stripping the cap of all paint and turning, sanding and polishing to see if I could get a better finish. A particularly helpful tool was a 6" diameter sanding drum; this is made of foam rubber, with a circular sanding belt on the outside. In a high-speed drill (with a device for making it free-standing) this drum can do serious removal of material. I have a very old sanding belt which has been worn pretty smooth and so is much less harsh. I also have various other paint-removing, polishing etc things to go in the drill, so I can process a wide range of projector parts. Sometimes it is best to put the part in the drill and apply the polishing mop to it as it rotates; this is what I did with the knobs that hold the spool arms to the projector. Using a drill in this way can be dangerous both to you and, more important, to the part you are trying to clean. I have had parts snatched from my hands because the polishing mop in the drill caught a corner or whatever, and zing off across the workshop. Trust me, this does not do parts any good, either cosmetically or even, at worst, functionally. You need to ensure the rotation of the drill is always tending to pull the part you are polishing AWAY from you. Things can get hot, so wear old gloves (thinnish, or you can't hold stuff properly). Circular parts with a central bore can be held firmly in the drill on a suitably sized bolt, or held in the hand with a screwdriver or similar thru the bore you can easily control the rotation of the part on the screwdriver by finger pressure.

Above all, just take care and think safety ALL the time and do not try to run before you can walk. Simples.

Anyway, I ended up with a nice, bright-metal cap for the lamphouse. Given the depth of pitting one so often finds, the perfect finish is not possible, but this looks good and, if a return to originality is required, it just needs painting. One problem I had was that there is a baffle plate just inside the cap, held to its top by a couple of riveted spacers. The less-than-gentle removal of the cap broke one of these; in the end I replaced both with miniature threaded spacers and bolts. The brass heads of the bolts make a nice detail.

Mechanism Cover

 

Actually, I did this before the lamphouse cap, which is what gave me the idea of leaving the cap un-painted. Removing the lens involved a lot of twisting and polishing accessible bits etc until it finally came out, then pretty much as per the cap. Sadly, most of the nickel plating had gone and pitting is quite severe, limiting what could be achieved.

Other Plated Parts

Roller assemblies and spool spindles are among the most difficult parts to clean up effectively, as they are relatively small and fiddly and you often can't easily get into all the corners. The roller assemblies were of riveted-type assembly, ie they couldn't be taken apart. This is where techniques I have developed over the years come in. First, one needs plenty of rags and some decent metal polish; I use two, Chrome Magic, [seems to be no longer available - I now mostly use Peek] which is non-abrasive, for steel, brass, chrome, nickel etc and Alu-Magic, which is abrasive, for aluminium. There are of course many others; the above and others are available at www.frost.co.uk. Another particularly helpful item is a small, bench-top vice with SMOOTH jaws. A vice with the normal serrated jaws will destroy the finish on your parts. In fact, I have both as there are uses for the serrated jaws; both are held to the bench-top with the usual screw-mounting device that means they are easily removed rather than permanently fixed. What I have found helpful is to fairly gently hold the relevant part in the vice, in any way that will hold it fairly still but not crush or bend it - cushioning with rags can help. Often one has to adjust position a number of times.

I then thoroughly impregnate a strip of rag with the polish and drag it to and fro across and thru the part, using a hand at each end of the strip of cloth. You can get much more force and effect this way than simply rubbing with your fingers. With the trapped rollers of the assemblies from this machine, pushing a bit of rag behind them with a screwdriver so that you can drag it to and fro is about the only way to do it. Obviously, one cannot reach every corner like this; that is when judicious use of a screwdriver comes in, heavily wrapped in rag and pushed into the corners again, much more force than can be achieved with fingers but watch out the driver blade does not get thru and scratch. If things are so bad some sanding is needed, get some fine wet & dry sandpaper, tear off a strip and use in the same manner as the rag - I had to do this with the spool spindles.A variant of this can be applied to sprockets and similar circular parts. Hold the sprockets in the (smooth) vice across the flat sides and apply the polishing rag as above; I have found that by varying the angle, you can actually clean all round the sprocket without having to re-position it in the vice. A final variant is useful for pulley grooves and similar. Instead of the pulley, the polish-impregnated rag is held tightly in the vice at one end, then stretched out taut. The groove of the pulley can then be pulled to and fro along the rag, for cleaning.

Another technique I use frequently is to lay the rag (works for sandpaper, too) flat on the bench top and find a way of stretching it out taut - I usually do this between my fingers and thumb. Flat surfaces can then be polished with considerable force. I often use this approach to clean screw-heads, which can otherwise mar the appearance of a projector. Don't forget to clean the bores of sprockets etc - push the rag thru with a small screwdriver, then twist or drag in and out. Knobs with knurled or milled edges can pose a particular challenge. A toothbrush dipped in polish and/or a (brass) wire brush can help, or maybe dip but see below under Gate. I have subsequently found that a circular brass wire brush in the drill can do wonders for milled edges. Eye protection is vital, as bits of brass can fly off. No amount of polishing is going to restore badly corroded plating, and the plating on the cheaper machines is often of poor quality anyway, but it is surprising how much better parts can look if rust and the general surface corrosion, dirt and oil is removed or at least toned down. I do wonder why people think projectors should be kept damp in the first place.

Spool Arm Pins

This refers to the commonly-used system for making spool arms foldable. The arm is held by a central threaded bolt; the pin is off-centre and locates into a hole, maybe several holes for different positions on the projector mounting point. Obviously, without the locating pin, the arm would continually be working loose and drooping. Loosening the bolt far enough allows the pin to disengage so the arm can be folded or moved to another position. In this case, the pins appear to have been made of Mazac and maybe someone didn't know to undo the bolt far enough. Anyway, they had broken off. The (very rough photocopy) Triplico instructions I have actually specifically emphasises the need to avoid shearing the pins. I had to use a milling cutter to drill out the remains - drills don't work as the drill wanders off line. I then found some steel rod of about the right size and glued replacements in place with Gorilla Glue.

Wiring

Much of the original wiring of an old projector simply has to be discarded. It is highly likely that there are hidden as well as visible defects and it's not worth taking chances. Its likely you will have to make some changes anyway, eg to fit an earth or to replace the original resistance if it hasn't disappeared over time. Basically, I chucked all the original wires. However, motors are a special problem. In this case, the motor wires looked as thought they had first melted and run, then hardened off and were now gradually turning to dust. As the motor is hard-wired, so to speak, the problem extended into the casing. One thing you will certainly have to face if you restore projectors is going inside motors to fix them, so you might as well learn. It is important to remove the brushes before dis-assembling, and to remove the connecting wires to the brush housings before trying to remove the field coil. 

Most motors are held together by two long bolts or rods with nuts at each end (or a bolt-head in place of one of the nuts). You may of course have to remove a pulley or gear on the motor shaft, which can be interesting, especially if retained by a taper pin. Then remove the end cap that does NOT have the brushes. They can be pretty well stuck, but you need to be gentle as they are often made of Mazac. Usually the shaft and the rotor/commutator will come out with the cap - take care not to damage the windings; motors are a very tight fit with minimal clearances. Some will only come out thru one end of the casing; don't force it. Two further screws normally hold the field coil in place. But BEFORE you touch these, look at the mountings where the brushescome thru into the casing. Frequently, connections to the brushes are made by spring loops soldered to the wires, the loops passing round the brush housings. If you try to remove the field coil before slipping these loops off, you will stretch them and leave yourself a really tricky problem. I know, I have been there.

Here is an H motor the springs are not actually on the brush sockets but are clearly visible you can see the grooves where they fit. In this case, I also had to remove the springs from their wires as the insulation had more or less vanished and had to be replaced.

A major problem I find once inside a motor is that the inside bits of the old wires, to which you have to solder new bits of wire, are most reluctant to take solder. I have tried cleaning with turps or meths, and sanding the strands to clean them, but its still difficult. In this case, I resorted to entangling the old and new strands together as best I could and soldering over the lot. The solder is probably doing a mechanical joining job rather then anything else, by sticking to the new wire and stopping it escaping from the old. Replacing the spring loops was a particular problem. For this sort of work, heat-shrink insulating tube is an absolute God-send; as well as insulating joins and bare wires, it can add significant mechanical strength, tho' as a disadvantage, it is less flexible than wire. You do have to remember to put it on before making a join and slide it onto the joint after - you cant fit it except via a free end. One of the problems is being able to keep the heat-shrink from being affected by the heat of the joint as you make it some - sort of heat shunt in the shape of a crocodile clip, pliers or whatever, can help. Otherwise the tubing shrinks and cant be moved into place.

There are of course two wires from the field coil to the brushes. Which one goes where is what determines the direction in which the motor rotates. It is very irritating to find once you have re-assembled the motor that it turns the wrong way and you have to dismantle again. Needless to say, this motor turned the wrong way. The motor has little end-caps in chrome (to be cleaned, of course), one of which states clearly it is 110v. It seemed to run very quietly but maybe a bit slow. I tried increasing the voltage a bit with a Variac, just in case it was really 240v, but no. In fact, the 110v of the Variac made the motor run better, so I adjusted the tranny I had been using to feed the 220v tapping rather than 240v. We're actually supposed to be 230v now, so this change should deliver a bit more oomph.

Might as well segue straight into the motor bearing point. Under those chrome end-caps is a circular bit of felt that acts as an oil reservoir for the motor bearing. The thing is that, while one should not over-oil in normal operation, the chances are that a restoration project will have been disused for a very long time and the oil will have dried out. A drop every x hours of use will not deliver anything to the bearing soon, if ever, so these wicks need to be soaked through before normal oiling can be resumed.

Speed Control

Some tears ago, I acquired a Heurtier triple-gauge silent machine. It had no earth, so I promptly fitted one, only to find that the motor would now only operate at maximum revs. Part of the resistance circuit, if not actually thru the body, was in contact with it. I didn't like it then, and I dont like it now. In this case, the rod connecting the wiper on the resistance to the external knob was steel and simply passed thru a hole in the body, inevitably making contact. This seemed to me not to be a good idea. But fixing it was a nightmare and even now I'm not too happy with what I have achieved. What I managed finally to do was to cut the rod and insert a non-conducting plastic section, tho it took many attempts to make this work. I have since found some insulating nylon spacers which I think would do a better job, but I'm not going in there again! As with the rest, all the wires involved in the circuit had rotted.

PLEASE NOTE THAT I HAVE SINCE DISCONNECTED THE 110V PART IN THE TRANNY BELOW - IT BLEW THE FUSES TOO OFTEN; MUST BE A FAULT IN MY IDEAS. 

Moving on to the re-wiring, I need to digress a little into power supply. The lamp in the machine is 12v 35w, a small globe. I dont know if this is original; the Triplico instructions refer only to wattage, 50w classroom (!??) or 200w. Not that this is desperately important, as for machines like this with no fan cooling I dont think anything more than 12v 100w is viable. What I did here was to take an empty 50v 200w transformer case from a 200B and fit a Eumig P8 tranny into it. Here is a pic of the tranny.

 

Wired in this way I can get the 110v for the motor and 12v for the lamp. In order to get an interlock between the motor and lamp switches, I wired the projector with one lamp wire coming via the motor and lamp switches, this being the common wire and so not needing a separate connection for the lamp. The other lamp lead connects to the 12v cable via a banana plug. It is, of course, vital to connect this plug to the correct side of the 12v output socket or there could be a bang, puff of smoke, damage and even personal danger! I could perhaps have found another way, but this was the simplest I could come up with, and I don't like not having an interlock. Note that the two output cables are sandwiched between the shiny strip you see across the gap at the front and another ditto, lying in this pic on the left. When swung back across and held down by the giant bolt-heads that secure the top, this forms an effective cord grip, with added help from cable ties on the back vertical pins. Having done this tranny, I have now got a useful power supply for general use.

As a further digression, I had made a lampholder for a 28mm KOK and needed a power supply to test it so, naturally, I turned to my newly-made one. The first lamp failed, the second and third exploded (fortunately for me, inside the lamphouse) and my aging cheap analogue multimeter went up in smoke. I took the power supply apart and re-checked everything, but no good. I finally traced the problem. Some years ago, I built a sort of Hi-Fi Tower to take my AV amp, DVD player, cassette player, laser disc player and even VCR. These all took power from a series of sockets in the base, one of which was a sort of "master" and fed the others. As soon as I opened this up, it was obvious that I had made a glaring error when I first set it up, and reversed the polarity of the live and neutral wires. Nothing else I have ever connected that has been fed by this same socket has ever given any problem, but the auto-transformer/common neutral wiring of this power supply exposed the fault.

Gate

The apparent corrosion of parts of the gate turned out not to be too bad - the worst bits were where they could be sanded off and repainted. I did re-spray the main fixed plate. The rest was the usual cleaning and polishing. One thing I find helpful, with caution, for removing rust is what I call dip, after Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Basically, you leave stuff in it and it gets rid of rust and scale without damaging paintwork or eroding good metal. Care is needed tho I once dissolved some springs in dip as there was not enough thickness in them to survive. It does not, of course, do anything about the pitting that is the concomitant of corrosion; it can often be surprisingly deep and beyond any realistic removal by sanding all the surroundings down to the same level. Dip can also be useful with things like knurled knobs, which can be very difficult to get looking good.

Mechanism

Once removed from the distorted Mazac casting and oiled and cleaned, the mech proved to be very free-running, so I avoided any further dismantling. The trouble recurred on re-fitting, of course. I 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. The only other option, making a new sprocket, is beyond me. Coarse framing is by rotating the bottom sprocket until the limited range of the lever can come into play for fine tuning.

Paintwork

This is pretty much covered under the introductory bit above, but I would like to re-emphasise that adding daubs of paint to individual chips is not a solution I commend. It is impossible to avoid the paint spreading beyond the boundary of the chip, or to get a precise match. The result may look OK from a distance, but close up its not nice. With some machines, especially smooth-finished jobs, a really thorough-going strip-down and proper multi-coat re-spray may be the answer. It is hard to know what paint to use, however. For the sort of cosmetic coating I described earlier, it doesn't matter a lot, but for a proper job car paint seems too soft, enamels don't seem to stick too well sometimes, Hammerite is a bit toxic tho gives a closer approximation than most to the sort of thickly-painted finish found on many old projectors. The satin finish I have found to be the most useful. One problem Hammerite and some other paints have is that they are susceptible to attack from chlorinated hydrocarbons, ie the solvents found in various film-cleaning fluids. I have often used a tissue impregnated with eg Cresclean in an attempt to give a bit of moisture back to films by putting it with them in a can (dripping it on is nbg if you use as much tape for repair as I do, since tape is also susceptible). I went back to find the tissue stuck to the paint. I don't know what they used originally on spools, but some I had re-painted had polyurethane paint, and this seems good and not susceptible to cine solvent attack. I am currently experimenting on amachine with acryllic spray paint.

General

One of the most frequent details that needs fixing with old machines is rubber feet that are missing or eroded or turned to vile gunge. I keep a large stock of replacement feet I don't worry about originality here. Often the screws have gone, too, so I keep any and every screw I come across. I have improved projectors such as the H (which never had feet at all) by drilling into the front feet (you really need a lathe for this) and tapping the hole for a screw to hold rubber feet on. The back of an H is more difficult, I don't like to fix feet to the base plate as the screws that hold it on go straight into the bakelite of the base and the threads are fairly soft and easily damaged. What I have done instead is to use longer bolts in two of the four holes for securing the motor mounts; these holes pass right through the Bakelite (and have brass inserts so are stronger). They can then be used from inside to provide support for columns that go on to meet the base plate. For one, an existing hole in the base plate is OK, the other needs a new hole but I think this is worth it to deaden the noise an H can make on a hard surface with those solid feet. Sometimes, even where there are feet, they are a permanent fixture and once the rubber has gone manky can't easily be replaced. Then I resort to the method I described for the H front feet, or figure out something somehow.

Lenses need to be carefully cleaned, and maybe (better) replacements found. For example, a Vox can be sleeved up to accept eg B&H lenses, although many machines seem to have such idiosyncratic optical arrangements that only the original lens will work. Lamps need to be converted to QI - no permanent changes, mind! - tho' some ingenuity is needed to avoid change. Spring belts need to be replaced where rusty, if they are present at all. Base covers may be missing, are usually rusty (good candidates for dip and re-spraying) and, if they are there, most of the screws have vanished and wrong ones have been put in, it seems with the deliberate aim of damaging the threads. That's without even thinking about sound. but watch this space.

There is, in short, a huge amount of work that can and very often should be done to raise standards in the way we look after and present projectors. I am sure that the rusting, oily, tatty mess that sometimes passes as a vintage projector is one part of the negative image of our hobby that has kept us from attaining the wider levels of interest displayed in magic lanterns, old radios and tvs, mechanical toys, pre-movie moving picture devices like Praxinoscopes and all sorts of other stuff.

Finally, the finished article (Peerless).