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Topic: eBay Oddities (Please post all funny eBay links here!)
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Mike Peckham
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1461
From: West Sussex, UK.
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted February 26, 2007 04:32 PM
Graham
I bought a couple of these off Ebay a few weeks ago, I couldn't resist it because like you I was intrigued to know how they worked.
They are an incredibly clever design, I took them to work and showed a colleague who whilst not interested in cine, appreciates a good gadget, and that's exactly what they are.
Basically, you wind the film onto the non-rewind spool just as though it were a normal auto spool; it has a little clip which you must have in the "up" position whilst it is loading and this is then pushed into the "down" position prior to showing the film. To show the film the projector has to be first fitted with the special adaptor which clips on to the feed spool arm, the loaded non-rewind spool is then loaded on to the adaptor, having first had the special clip pushed down, the white spool cover attached and the spool itself pulled apart (the two halves seperate from each other by about 5mm). You then turn the spool a couple of revolutions in the wrong direction and if you're lucky the end of the film will push out from the core end of the spool, this is as a result of having pushed the "clip" down which frees up some space, and pulling the spool apart which allows the film to rotate on the core.
The end of the film is then pulled over the rotating part of the adaptor and fed into the film path as normal. In order for the film to finish the show in a non-rewind status it is necessary to have loaded the take up arm with another special non-rewind spool.
The possibility of the film getting scratched is really quite frightening; I tried mine on an old film that I wasn't too worried about. All in all it really is a gimmick and it's not hard to see why sales of this device didn't take off, in truth it is far less of a problem to rewind the film than it is to fiddle about with the clips and spools seperators and attatch and then remove the special adaptor.
As a gimmick and a potential film scratcher it scores 10 out of 10, as a labour saving device I think it scores about - 5!
Worth picking up though if they go cheaply - just so that you have a bit of cine history in your cupboard.
Mike
-------------------- Auntie Em must have stopped wondering where I am by now...
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