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Author
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Topic: A POLYESTER TRICK WITH SUCESS!
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Chip Gelmini
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1733
From: Brooksville, FL
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted October 18, 2004 05:33 PM
Below is a letter I sent to another friend and thought I should share it here.....
Been doing stuff with super 8. I trouble shooted a problem with autoload and you might want to consider it.
Step 1. Get rid of the Neumade Fiesta leader. You could use it as other things, but NOT autoload.
Step 2: Purchase odd ball reels (cheap cost) of digests make sure they are mylar or polyester and have both track 1 and 2 applied. Cut them up in 5 foot lengths and splice to the heads of each reel about 1 foot before the #11 in the countdown.
I believe the plastic material in the Neumade leader conducts static electricity. During the autoload process, it binds to the inside parts of the machine, causing film jams. That's not a good thing under the tremendous force of autoload. You have always said manual thread is better and of course I agree. But with super 8, we are stuck with auto pilot. And it DOES work alot better with polyester film strips.
The problem with the extra stuff leader that comes with the prints is that to many times it is not the same length. When you trim that off (can be used as tails later) and add the 5 foot strips of polyester odd ball reel, you know exactly how much leader for autoload you have.
The 5 foot strip allows enough to go through the machine, and come out and droop down 1 and 1/2 foot. At that point you stop and attach to the take up reel. Then there is alittle extra before the countdown to run down. And if you use the grease pencil and mark number # 8 (on the soundtrack side) you'll stop the run down when the white line is in the top loop.
I am now 1/2 done with my entire collection. It's a massive time consuming job changing all these leaders. That's about 200 big reels, plus or minus a few features that are more than 2 reels each. I tried this experiment recently on my print of the Abyss right before I screened it. And what a world of difference. The ONLY glitches during the complete show was one or two little hairs in the gate, plus some focus adjustments. In all the years that I've been running super 8, this show ran the best.
I strongly advise you consider this option. It DOES make a difference.
Chip G
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