8mm Forum: ELF DAMAGE TO FILMS

This is topic ELF DAMAGE TO FILMS in forum 16mm Forum at 8mm Forum.

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Posted by Maurice Leakey (Member # 916) on October 23, 2007, 06:02 AM:

Do other Elf users have the same trouble as I do? All my Elfs damage the ends of my films. Is it to do with having only two sprockets? As the last few inches of film travel through there's the awful sound of the perfs being torn. I now stop whilst the last couple of turns are on the feed spool and unlace by hand. Film is precious, even the ends!

Can anyone offer any solutions?

Posted by Mark Todd (Member # 96) on October 23, 2007, 08:45 AM:

Hi Maurice, thats Odd must no as no loop. Last eiki I had was one of the later golden slimline ones and I don`t recall it doing it.
I was told they have a sort of swing action for the claw thats not as good as the proper action but usually OK.
Must admit I was looking at a shot in the back of a black NT1 on ebay the other day and what a wonderfully simple and straight foward layout they are.
best Mark.

Posted by Adrian Winchester (Member # 248) on October 23, 2007, 05:04 PM:

I have owned a NT which did this. I discovered that a previous owner had added extra springs to increase the pressure from the pressure plate, probably because of an unsteady picture. So it seemed that the pressure caused the very end of a film to momentarily get 'stuck' in the gate.

Posted by Maurice Leakey (Member # 916) on October 24, 2007, 02:47 AM:

Thanks to Adrian. Perhaps this also may explain why the gate sometimes flies open at the same time. I have replaced the gate springs on one projector due to unsteadiness, but these were (allegedly) the correct Elf spares.

However, I have four Elfs [2 x NT2. 1 x NT1, 1 x M1] and they all do the damage. Perhaps it's a design fault? I can't imagine that all four machines have had incorrectly tensioned gate springs fitted by their various owners.

If such springs have been fitted, how does one check? Other than wait for the film to be damaged!

Posted by Kevin Faulkner (Member # 6) on October 24, 2007, 03:36 PM:

I have an RM1 and mine certainly doesnt do that. How strange [Eek!]

Kev.

Posted by Hugh McCullough (Member # 696) on October 24, 2007, 05:56 PM:

Hello Maurice.
Adrian could be correct about the gate tension springs.
The top spring should be the shorter of the two by about 1 turn.
This places less tension at the top of the gate than at the bottom.
More tension at the bottom is designed to hold the film, and stop it jumping about on the intermittant claw, when no film is in the top of the gate. i.e. when the last frames are going through.

Posted by Lee Mannering (Member # 728) on October 25, 2007, 07:47 AM:

Have Elf NT-2, Slimline and also the Elf 9.5mm Sound projector. All three models suffer from snatching the end of the film as it comes away from the reel and into the top sprocket. This I traced to the type of reel used and the amount of curl on the films end.

If the spool has a small core this puts more curl on the film encouraging it to get caught by the top projector sprocket and a chew up. The trick I came to was to avoid small core reels and also store all film unwound after use. I wonder if this is why the library’s always used to ask for films not to be rewound when sending back?

Hope this helps.

[ October 25, 2007, 11:04 AM: Message edited by: Lee Mannering ]

Posted by Maurice Leakey (Member # 916) on October 25, 2007, 08:58 AM:

Thanks for the two very interesting comments. When I bought the gate springs they appeared to be the same length and the supplier did not mention about the different length for top and bottom.

I must obviously be aware of the size of feed spool that I am using. Certainly the use of the Cyldon and Cecol 400' spools present a very small o/d at their centre.

Libraries always used to check returned films for possible damage, and as such it was easier to check the film once. Often hirers used to rewind solely to retain their own take-up spool. Because of this some libraries used to send out a take-up spool with the hired film.

Posted by Kevin Faulkner (Member # 6) on October 26, 2007, 05:36 AM:

I have never seen this problem as I said earlier but reading what has been said about spools I wonder if I dont get the problem because I dont poke the film in to the spools anchor slot. I hold the film against the spools core and give it a few turns till it's tight. I also do this on the 8mm machines as I hate the film being snatched off the spool at the end of the reel.

Funny How I have done this all my cine life...strange habits [Big Grin]

but maybe that the answer here to this problem.

Kev.

Posted by Maurice Leakey (Member # 916) on October 26, 2007, 08:50 AM:

I too, never push either 8 or 16 into the spool slots. I always make a few turns by hand both on the take-up spool and on rewinding to a feed spool.

But it's quite possible that the curl from a small core feed spool may be causing the problems, and also the flying open of the gate.

Posted by Martyn Stevens (Member # 861) on November 04, 2007, 12:10 PM:

HI,

I agree with Lee - it's about over-tight curl from smallish cores. The film tries to wrap around the top sprocket as the end passes thru and gets caught , so the top loop goes and then the claw rips the film in the gate. Two solutions
a) Long leader so it don't matter
b)fit a stripping plate so the film can't wrap onto the sprocket.

Martyn Stevens

Posted by Maurice Leakey (Member # 916) on November 05, 2007, 02:24 AM:

A big thank-you for all your comments on Elf end-of-film damage.

I tried a film which was on a large centred 1200' spool and it went through at its end OK. So, it certainly seems that small core spools impart too much curl to the film which hinders its end passing through the gate.

I was well aware of films which had their end pushed through the spool slot often almost refusing to leave the parent spool and have always threaded onto a spool with two or three turns around the centre core, but I must admit I had never thought about this curl problem.

All I need now is a pile of large core spools as I have over 800 films on 16mm!

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