35MM PROJECTORS
This page shows various pictures and bits and pieces I have accumulated about 35mm. In a few cases, so far the
EDUCATOR, the COSMOGRAPH and the KÖDERS I have enough to justify a separate page.
Debrie
This is a 1920s "Jacky" Debrie, a 35mm machine not unlike some of the cameras Debrie were producing at the time. Until the prospect of taking it to Argenteuil in 2020, I had not even taken it out, let alone fixed and tested it, despite having had it for several years.
Here are some pix; these are mostly stolen from the internet, but my machine is exactly the same, except I do not got the spool-box things. The only pix that are mine are the switch mech. While I was re-doing the photos for this page I came across a pic from one of my visits to Argenteuil so I have just tacked it on the end.
It's a very strange machine. The strangest bit is that the film has to cross over by 3 or 4 inches to reach the bottom sprocket. The machine was pretty seized up when I got it, and I spent many days coaxing it back to life. A particular problem was the switch mech, which I had to take apart quite a bit as it was integral with the double motor resiatance, both parts of which had cracked clean in two, fortunately without breaking the wires. I super-glued them together then used epoxy putty to reinforce the repair and keep the wires around the break area firmly in place. Figuring out how to connect it all back up again once I'd done the repair took me quite while.
My machine is avialable to buy to anyone who can fork out £1k or suggest a sensible offer.
This first picture is a bit old, dating back to 1997, in an issue of Image Technology. This is the Journal of the BKSTS (British Kinematograph, Sound and Television Society). Putting three digital sound systems on the same film with the analogue track was then seen as simply a technical possibility, possible because all three used different areas of the film.
The analogue track has come a long way from the early days of mono sound tracks, with twin tracks for stereo and companies like Dolby squeezing surround sound and other effects from it. The DTS system, as I understand it, simply provides a time code to a sound unit playing the equivalent of a CD. This has the advantage that you just change the CD to change the language the audience hear. Film breaks don't matter as the coded signal simply shifts the CD on to the correct place. The Dolby SRD system I find particularly fascinating, as it breaks away completely from the linear, analogue approach, by placing the digital soundtrack information in separate "packets" between the sprocket holes. This really exploits the possibilities of digital, allowing discontinuous info to be processed to create a continuous soundtrack. I once attended a talk by a Dolby engineer, who said that they had found that the inter-sprocket area was very little affected by wear, except right in the centre of the "packet". So they didn't use that bit for soundtrack info, but put the Dolby double-D logo there instead. Now that I call inspired, tho' I don't know if they still do it. I don't know anything about the SDDS system, tho' it looks like digital info in a conventional linear form. More about the evolution of Dlby sound is in this pdf. DOLBYEVOLUTION.pdf
This is a drawing I found (probably from BKSTS again) with the dimensions of a TODD-AO projection print. I love this sort of detailed stuff. Huge amounts of it, of course, on that series of big posters BKSTS did on film gauges, colour systems etc some years back. I also have a bad copy of an article by Grant Lobban MBKS from the BKSTS, called 35mm Release Print Formats. This dates from 1970 and was 8 then. I don't know where I got it or why anybody bothered copying it, because without top quality pix it's useless, but if you're into this kinda thing, it looks fascinating.
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I always used to wonder why they couldn't make 35mm projectors that were only a bit bigger than 16mm instead of unbelievably heavy and cumbersome. As my projection facility is in the loft and I have too much stuff, size and weight are serious considerations. Eventually I found one; I have seen others, too, so it obviously can be done.
The best that used to be available was the GBN, (pic 1 below), immensely heavy and limited capacity.
Pix 2 & 3 above are a Marin. 3 - 6 are Microcine; the innards are interesting - everything is driven by toothed belts. The fans for cooling the Xenon lamp and its power supply (which is integral) are just standard 80mm mains-operated computer case fans. (See the Microcine website; link in Miscellany). Pic 7 is from Argenteil; very like the Microcine it is clearly designed for backroom/technical/laboratory use.
I found the first three pix on eBay. The machine is called a Kinelite - from the back view it seems to be a fairly stripped-down machine - but still pretty compact. Couple more for you, an Oxford and an unidentified. The Oxford has the same basic layout as the DeVry; Pic 5 seems very reminiscent of the Chinese-made Spectra (see below). The last is from Argenteuil.
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The first four are of a Spectra I had at one time. It was a lovely little machine, but marred by that huge power pack/ballast (pic 4) and the fact it took only 2000' spools. With the boxes I suppose it could in principle show nitrate, which might still have been around, in some parts of the world at least.when the Spectra first appeared. The Spectra was a Chinese machine, imported into the UK by some British company. The range included a pair of these, complete with stands, 1000 watt Xenons, a single power supply or "ballast" cum changeover unit (which weighed more than the machine itself - old technology), an amplifier, a pair of rewind arms and a tape splicer. They were aimed at cine clubs and similar. Spool capacity was only 2000ft, so changeover operation was needed, and operators had to have a degree of skill. The same company also imported a full-size theatrical machine and cakestand aimed at small cinema operations - there was one in my local library theatre, I discovered and is now with the PPT (pic 5). I acquired one of a pair of the "portable" type, together with the Xenon power supply, as seen here and the amp. (The other machine, bereft of its power supply, got converted I think). I seem to recall I did have the stand, but didn't use it as I needed all my projectors to be moveable - it's on a wheeled stand in these pix - but not the splicer or rewinds. (Curiously, I did acquire the splicer and rewinds, in a completely separate transaction, a year or two later; the splicer was an obvious rip-off of the CIR. I later had it converted to 28mm. The rewinds, bench-edge-mounting type, are still around).
The critical problem for me was the 2000ft limitation, making running anything longer than two reels a chore, so in the end it had to go to be replaced by the Microcine above. However, it was a beaut bit of kit, good old-style engineering and few belts. It did leak oil from the intermittent gearbox tho'. I have seen variants on it at Argenteuil (last 2 pics above). They show the ugly arrangement needed to get more than 2000'.
Above are some leaflets I found at Argenteuil, proving 35mm machines do not need to be huge and requiring a crane.
Dino Everett spotted a fascinating machine on ebay - an obvious clone of the 28mm Premier Pathescope - or vice versa. Dino tends to the view the 35mm came first, a notion which seems logical and is supported by the wonderfully primitive motor, with a very useful inching knob. But very few other changes apart from the obvious and the name plate. I must admit I have always wondered how on earth Willard Beech Cooke came up with an excellent 28mm projector from thin air, and this must surely be the answer - he didn't, he just copied an existing 35mm machine. 
There is a shaft at the back, absent from my 28mm version, which may have been for an external motor, or an output to ...... what? The friction brake present on my 28 is missing, tho' there may be a hole where it fits...... The most difficult feature to reconcile is that tiny two-bladed shutter. Is it original? I can't see how anything that small could do the job, and a two-bladed one would maybe need to rotate faster anyway, which would require changing gear ratios, which could be tricky. I assume it is a purely cosmetic addition for display purposes by a sometime owner. So it appears Cooke simply copied the 35mm machine - not much more than badge engineering - and bought in a batch of surplus sewing machine motors (mine literally states that on its maker's plate) for the drive, to overcome the shortcomings of the KOK and, no doubt, to cope with lack of supplies of the KOK from a France at war. I wonder if there is any link to the Peerless company that made the early Triplico-type machine and the SP Wundatone?
My 35mm Ciniola, long since departed.
Now here's something I would bet good money that few of you have ever seen. Quite what it was for I dunno - it's like an Acmiola/Ciniola, but with a prism to project the image onto a screen. The only way I can see it scoring over the others is that (I think) it had a shutter.
Please note these pix enlarge one at a time and should be dismissed using the "back" key at the top left of the screen.
Below are a couple of older machines.
A lovely-looking semi-toy 35, a Butcher-Houghton Empire A, courtesy of Trevor Adams in NZ. I assume it is the one in the pic in the ad, but the ad is not clear enough. The Kinox blurbis notable for the poor grammar and the side-swipe at machines that have a dynamo, as well as the insistence on absolute safety. Could both of these last two be references to the KOK? As indeed could be references to enclosed gears. The Kinox pix are a machine I partially restored and ultimately sold. I got it from Steve Siddaway lierally decades ago, and it came with no shutter, no lamphouse or condenser and arms that just slid about in the case. I also had to add a power supply and a "stripper" as I call it, a device for stopping film catching on sprockets when you don't want them to. The lamphouse is, I hope, reasonably professional-looking; aficionados will note a generic likeness to the Pathé Baby lamphouse. The lid survived less well than the machine (by doing its job, I suppose, and protecting the machine), but I have been reluctant to over-paint even the very faded name.
David Richardson came up with some fascinating stuff on old Empires.
Don Sykes sent me envy-inducing pix of his Kinox, with superb transfers still intact.
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These are a Pathé mech and 3 shots of a Monopol mech from 1914.
This is a pretty modern cinema machine, a Meopta with trendy, up-to-date red-light sound reading. Except it now seems that, like all the rest, it will soon be confined to museums.
I suppose as this is called a professional I have to put it in 35, not toys.
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Milinia Eden ent these pix of various 35mm mechs, including a Powers Cameragraph No. 5
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Thanks to Pete Diggle, who has sent in this pic of an early (1917ish) 35mm and some pages from what looks to be a fascinating book.
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A beyootiful Powers 35mm machine spotted by Chris Bird in Nov 2013.
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Projectors at Auction from a Christies sale.
1. Projection mechanism
35mm., metal-body, with hand-crank and shutter;
2.Reliance Animatograph 1904 model
R. W. Paul, 68 High Holborn, London; 35mm., powder-coated cast iron, brass fittings, hand-cranked projection mechanism, Paul intermittent movement.
3.Empire No. 1 projection mechanism
W. Butcher & Sons, Farringdon Avenue, London; 35mm., black painted cast iron chassis, lacquered brass flywheel and sprocket drums, beater movement, top spool arm, lacks bottom spool arm
4. Empire No. 2 Maltese Cross projection mechanism
W. Butcher & Sons, Farringdon Avenue, London; 35mm., black painted cast iron chassis with brass mechanical components, maltese cross movement, electric light lamphouse and bulb, top and bottom spool arms, 4 inch projection lens
5. Empire Cinematograph model A. W. Butcher and Sons Ltd., London; 35mm., cast iron base with nickel plated brass fittings, maker's plate, external single-bladed shutter, intermittent movement, hand-cranked mechanism, 3 inch lens, electric lamp, black painted metal lid, cylinder form resistance
6.Projection mechanism Wescoscope; 35mm., cast iron and brass projection mechanism mounted on mahogany base, hand-cranked beater movement, electrically illuminated, lower spool arm, battery holder, pilot lamp, brass bound lens. The Wescoscope is not referred to in the Ariel Register or other specialist literature
7. Kinox Projector. Krupp-Ernemann, Dresden; 35mm., black-painted metal casting on wooden base with black-painted metal arched lid, gate stamped no. 904090, hand-cranked mechanism with double claw action, electric lamp, an Ernemann Werke Pro-anastigmat 6cm. lens no. 87866. I've got one of these somewhere.
8. The Ruby projector no. 270. Thornton-Pickard Mfg. Co. Ltd., Altrincham, England; 16mm., cast alloy body with black crackle finish, external enclosed shutter positioned after the lens, mechanism driven by external electric motor stamped NORTH EAST ELECTRIC CO., ROCHESTER N.Y., electric light, the manufacturer's fitted case housing a resistance with variable speed control and compartment with two spools, film rewinding by hand crank, a Dallmeyer f/1.9 2 inch projection lens no. 122078.
9. PLUS model C projector no. 2825
Paris-London Universal-Studios; 16mm., suitcase-style projector, claw movement, electrically driven motor with resistance, black, red and gold illustrated makers label and instructions for use pasted to the inside of the case, a Dallmeyer 2 inch projection lens no. 295198. The P.L.U.S. is not referred to in the Ariel Register or other specialist literature.
10. NS Perforating machine
Newman & Sinclair, London; 35mm., lacquered brass fittings on a cast iron base with maker's plate PATENT NO. 23958
11. 22mm. and 17.5mm. equipment. Usines Gallus, Courbevoie; Cinloc 22mm. projector, black-painted alloy body on steel cone-shaped stand, one 22mm. spool, electrically powered, a Faliez Foyer Siamor 40mm. projection lens; a PathFres 17.5mm. motocamera no. R00935, spring-wound, with a Krauss Trianar f/3 2.5cm. lens no. 276472. http://www.xs4all.nl/~wichm/filmsize.html#OTHER.
Ariel (1981), Cinematographica Register, no. 1034
The Cinloc projector is not mentioned in the Ariel Register. 22mm. Ozaphan cellophane film was produced in 1922 with a conventional layout of a row of peforations each side of the image. It seems to have had a very short-lived existence. The gauge differs considerably from Edison's 22mm. Home Kinetoscope film, which positioned three strips of images and two central perforations across its width.
The 17.5mm. gauge, also with two rows of perforations at the edges of the film, was launched by Pathé in 1926 and achieved only limited success.