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Topic: Help! What cloths do you use with FilmGuard?
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Tom Photiou
Film God
Posts: 4837
From: Plymouth U.K
Registered: Dec 2003
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posted July 25, 2017 02:02 PM
Martin that is so annoying
This has only happened to me once and believe me i have cleaned many thousands of feet of film over the years. A lesson i learned the hard way. On my film, (fortunately not a top title), i let the cloth go a bit too dry and toward the last 50/100 ft of film there were two horrible orangy coloured enamel scratches. I went bonkers at myself.
1/ I now only use 100% cotton hankerchiefs, i find these really work well.
2/ Dont over apply, (lesson learned again), BUT dont let the cloth run too dry,
3/ TURN THAT CLOTH FREQUENTLY. re apply very little and DONT press too hard.
4/ What we do is, once i clean the film from one spool to the other, i then reverse clean it again, this time i only apply a little cleaner ONCE and rewind the film through the cloth but with a lighter touch, i find this gives the last 50 ft a good clean, (this often gets less cleaned than the rest of the film), and it also spreads the filmguard nice and evenly. If that first 50ft looks a little too wet i wind it back a little and run this section through a dry but CLEAN part of the hanky.
Thankfully since using this method i have never done any damage to any of our films during cleaning. ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
Blimy Will, you must be septic ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
When i put my reply on i then saw your reply which you must have added as i was typing this. which is pretty much what we do.
Great minds think alike old bean
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Martin Dew
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 204
From: Henley-on-Thames, UK
Registered: Jan 2017
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posted July 26, 2017 04:49 AM
Thanks, Andrew. Yes, I wait with bated breath to find out how a new lamp can affect the film path. Although, actually, I'm so pedantic about cleaning my S938, I don't think that will have been the culprit in this case.
But it's also intriguing what you say about a splice acting like a pipe cleaner, lifting hidden particles and presumably dropping them somewhere else in the path.
Clearly, as you say, there's another advantage too of owning a CIR splicer. I will keep on the lookout for one. I currently use the Kodak Presstape machine which produces very clean accurate splices, but it does cover 4 frames, not 2. I am learning new things every day, but it's good to know that I'm not the only person who has experienced frustrating symptoms like I described in my first post.
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Andrew Woodcock
Film God
Posts: 7477
From: Manchester Uk
Registered: Aug 2012
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posted July 26, 2017 09:10 AM
Yes Martin, you may very well be quite correct in that your film path was meticulously clean, like i believe just all about all owners of films and projectors strive for at all times.
It is just that because a splice adds extra thickness and rigidity to the usual flexible nature of film, it also then has a tendency to detract from a perfect top and bottom loop as a splice (especially 4 frame splices) passes through the path.
This in turn can mean it touches parts of the film path that ordinarily, beyond thread, it really ought not to.
It may well have happened during cleaning and not during projection, but it is just something to bear in mind and is definitely less than coincidental that many used prints that have been previously joined together, can often display an emulsion scratch immediately after a splice for a time.
On occasions, I can even tell when the projectionist has horrifyingly discovered what is happening before his/ her very eyes, and then shut down the machine to see what was happening!
As for the change of lamp scenario that once caught me out,..
If you have noticed some white debris falling from your old lamp as you prise away the lamp socket, you will notice that this chalky hard substance used as insulation between the pins by the lamp manufacturers is extremely sharp and hard as rock!
Once I stopped the mid run to change the lamp that blew.
I cleaned the above stated debris away from the base of the lamp house but a tiny particle of it somehow transferred to the gate area or film path maybe via my fingers somehow??
The minute i started the film running again, a very long green centre scratch was appearing on screen.
Now if a lamp blows mid run, I simply run the reel to its end without a lamp, then rewind it before changing the lamp and cleaning everywhere before threading another reel of film through it.
A highly unlikely event, yet nevertheless highly costly one which will not be happening here again in the future!
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"C'mon Baggy..Get with the beat"
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