8mm Forum: Flutter on B & H 1735

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Posted by Simon McConway (Member # 219) on August 30, 2013, 03:18 AM:

This machine works well with a good steady picture but flutter on the sound. I have cleaned the sound rollers and checked the flywheel is free to turn, which it is. Any advice?

Posted by Maurice Leakey (Member # 916) on August 30, 2013, 06:11 AM:

Are all loops OK, and what about tension at the sound head? Does the head have moveable pads to keep the film in contact?
Why not apply a gentle pressure to the film on the sound head to see if it is an improvement. Repeat. Gentle pressure.

Posted by Simon McConway (Member # 219) on August 31, 2013, 04:29 PM:

Thank you Maurice. Strangely, on some films the sound is perfect. But on others, the flutter is present. Gently pressure on those rollers doesn't seem to do anything.

Posted by Maurice Leakey (Member # 916) on September 01, 2013, 02:59 AM:

Simon
I had the same problem with a brand new Eumig 807D way back in the mid seventies. Some Super 8 prints were fine, but some had a small degree of sound flutter. I never did cure the problem although I spent a great deal of time playing about with the head tensions and its position.
I eventually replaced it with a new Bell & Howell DCR which never gave any trouble.
I kept the Eumig for showing my family standard 8 films.

Posted by Jim Schrader (Member # 9) on September 01, 2013, 12:34 PM:

the bottom loop gave me trouble on mine had it tuned up and adjusted and works fine now.

Posted by Simon McConway (Member # 219) on September 01, 2013, 01:15 PM:

How do you adjust that? I've ordered the service manual from Oldtimer Cameras.

Posted by Jim Schrader (Member # 9) on September 01, 2013, 05:06 PM:

I took mine to a friend that does that, sorry i could of not been more help.

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on September 01, 2013, 05:29 PM:

Sounds like a classic case of the chatters! It's kind of Super-8's genetic weakness and it's always lingering just below the surface.

I guess when Kodak laid out the specs for the entire Super-8 system, they anticipated people shooting sound movies with cartridge film, and editing them at home. R8 Sound's 54 frame separation between film and image meant a loop of film about 8 inches long would need to be allowed between the gate and the recording head, which is a lot to accommodate in a cartridge. Plus if you cut and spliced a scene, you'd have a 3 second mismatch between image and sound at 18 FPS, which would be awkward on screen.

So they cut it back to 18 frames of separation, which helps with the two other problems but isn't quite enough to smooth out the speed of the film between the intermittent motion at the gate and the smooth one at the sound head.

The best luck I've ever had dealing with it came by accident one time when I got a complete mint set of guides for one of my machines, but that isn't going to happen very often these days.

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