8mm Forum: 1200 foot Reels

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Topic: 1200 foot Reels

Jack Cleveland
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 111
From: Selbyville, DE, USA
Registered: Oct 2014

posted November 08, 2015 05:25 PM

I am going to need to buy some 1200 foot reels for Super 8 soon, but I don't want to spend 100 dollars for four of them. Can anyone steer me somewhere that I may fond them cheaper than 25.00 a piece?

Thanks!

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Joe Taffis
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1592
From: United States
Registered: Jun 2003

posted November 08, 2015 06:56 PM

Jack,
Did you contact Steve Osborne? He may have some plastic ones [Smile]

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Joe Taffis

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Jack Cleveland
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 111
From: Selbyville, DE, USA
Registered: Oct 2014

posted November 08, 2015 07:51 PM

Thanks Joe- I will try and contact him!

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Lindsay Morris
Film Handler

Posts: 87
From: Darlington, WA, Australia
Registered: Jul 2013

posted November 08, 2015 10:04 PM

If you are handy with a file AND can find a good machinist you can convert 1200 foot 16mm spools to S8 reasonably easy. There is or was a ready supply of 16mm 1200 footers about.
I was driven to this in Australia as supplies of S8 1200 footers is practically zilch.
Basically all you need is to carefully cut one cheek off the 16mm spool with a hacksaw so the resulting face is reasonably smooth...easily cleaned up with a sharp file.
The other cheek with the large lump of centre then needs to be spun in a lathe on a faceplate so that what remains is 9mm wide. This includes the centre hub that the film winds on AND the central piece that the projector shaft passes thru.
Turning off plastic requires a good sharp lathe tool and a VERY gentle feed so that the tool does NOT dig in & wreck the work.

Once you have the 2 bits ready ordinary PVC pipe glue diluted by 30% with Acetone makes an ideal solvent to glue the 2 sections back together.
I made up a jig with a piece of particle board about the same size as the reel with a bolt passing thru the centre & the bolt being a snug fit in the square hole in the reel. The bolt head needs to be countersunk into the particle board so it sits flat on a bench.
Then made up another smaller board about half the width of the base board with the bolt and a hole in that board in the centre.

Apply the glue carefully to the edge of the turned down reel sections & lay that reel on the board with the bolt coming up thru the drive hole.
On the cheek that you had previously cut off and smoothed up again apply a small amount of the glue to where the central hub AND the drive centre bits would be..is fairly easy to see those areas and then place the cheek over the bolt onto the machined reel section, line up the drive slots so that the original alignment is maintained.
Then place the smaller board over the whole assembly & check that the reel sections have not moved by observing how the holes in the reel cheeks line up with each other & then place a weight on the lot and allow to set.
Takes about 24 hours to thoroughly dry and the the fun bit starts in filing out the 2 steel inserts to the shape of a S8 arm
fitting.
To guide me I cut another S8 reel cheek off a 400 foot plastic reel and lay that over the modified 16mm reel & carefully mark out the hole shape of the S8 reel hub on the modified 16mm reel hub with a fine pointed Sharpie pen.
Then carefully filed out the centre to match up with the S8 shape. You can use one of the original 16mm drive slots to work as a S8 drive slot & only involves a wee bit of filing to make that match.
As you MUST work evenly from both sides so that the reel runs true, mark both sides the same so the drive slot aligns & as you file the centre out continually check that you are taking material evenly from BOTH sides.
As you get closer to the outline you marked out check the reel for fit on your S8 projector & file very carefully as the fit improves.
My first couple of attempts ran very wobbly & were discarded as they scraped the reel arm which is NOT desirable.
A couple of others only wobbled when installed on the machine one way but turning around they ran OK so have retained those & are simply marked THIS SIDE OUT on the cheeks.

The steel inserts in the reel are TOOL Steel & cannot be drilled & grinding heats them up so that they no longer are a firm fit in the plastic & then are useless.
Filing although tedious is about the only way to get the drive hole the right size & shape.

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Lindsay

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Tom Photiou
Film God

Posts: 4837
From: Plymouth U.K
Registered: Dec 2003

posted November 10, 2015 01:38 AM

Alternatively buy some supaspools [Big Grin]

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Andrew Woodcock
Film God

Posts: 7477
From: Manchester Uk
Registered: Aug 2012

posted November 10, 2015 05:07 AM

Hmmmm!!

http://8mmforum.film-tech.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=010217#000002

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"C'mon Baggy..Get with the beat"

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Tom Photiou
Film God

Posts: 4837
From: Plymouth U.K
Registered: Dec 2003

posted November 10, 2015 06:39 AM

Yep, i prefer the reels with the larger cores, much smoother in operation and defiantly better for your films. [Wink]

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Joe Caruso
Film God

Posts: 4105
From: USA
Registered: Jun 2003

posted November 11, 2015 12:11 PM

I need 1200' also, will get hold of Steve

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