8mm Forum: My poor man's extended play setup

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Posted by Bill Brandenstein (Member # 892) on September 28, 2015, 10:32 PM:

Had some fun with the kids last Friday watching some films out on our patio under the stars and moonlight night. The shorts were run on the projectors with "normal" operation, then I loaded up a Super 8 feature print mounted on a 15" reel on the spindles of a B&H 2592 16mm, then threaded the film through an Eumig strategically aligned below. Step right up, folks, that's 2,340' of Super 8 film (1 hr, 57 min) without a pause! I'm not ready to do this with a mint Derann print, but a partly faded TV movie with an unending scratch down the side is a great candidate. Slicked up with FilmGuard, it looked as clean as it's capable and that poor Eumig ran forever without even whining.

Here's a look:

The projectors are shining out a window onto a screen hanging on our shed.

A few things that were really helpful: these Ra-cine Extend-a-Reels are 8mm wide with a 16mm hole, and on the B&H they actually snap on the spindle with very little play! I was prepared to put spacers on the spindles to keep things snug, but that proved unnecessary. Second, I moved the B&H to silent speed and opened the lens "door" to take unnecessary torque and pressure off the system. Third, the other essential is the 3" reels on the Eumig spindles, which is a REALLY cheap solution because it's just a rubber band wrapped multiple times around the hub to keep from scratching the film. A much better quality solution would be to make something out of real rollers so nothing ever comes in contact with the image area. But I'm pretty sure no damage was possible with that combination.

So while I'm nerding out over this working out nicely, the kids at least enjoyed the show. Doesn't seem like Dad's new personal-best Longest Reel Ever made much of an impression, though.

So hopefully if you've been looking to do something like this, you might find it as simple as I did if you already have an extra 16mm projector sitting around.

Posted by Graham Ritchie (Member # 559) on September 29, 2015, 03:12 AM:

Bill

That's a really neat idea...simple to [Smile]

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