Kodascope Pageant Sound Projector Model 7K2

[Ed Slosky]

I recently picked up the above 16 mm machine. I was able to run a reel through it (partially) and it worked just fine (at least for silent). Of course, it’s an old machine and was not used recently until now. It does appear it was at least kept in its case and indoors while not in use. Before I put any more reels through it I would like to know about cleaning the machine. As a side note it does say “do not lubricate/lifelong lubrication” (but did they really think these machines would still be going in 2025 haha?).

Anyway, should anything be cleaned up on this machine? And if so with what and how? Or is this perhaps a situation of if it ain’t broke don’t fix it? As always any advice and insight is greatly appreciated as this is all completely new to me.

[Steve Klare]

Hi Ed,

I have a Pageant 250s, the last generation of the Kodak Pageant: it is a beast probably intended to survive a volcano going off in the room (-or High School at very least ), and as long as it works, it really doesn't need anything from us.

Then again, the sound circuit is the most failure prone part of the machine, so you really need to try that out!

"Clean" is always better. If you go through the film path and gently remove dust and emulsion and any other crud you may find it is kind to the films and the image on screen too.

Are you in a part of Pennsylvania that's handy to the Jersey Shore? There's a film gathering in Wildwood next month!

CineSea

[Ed Slosky]

Thanks Steve for the info. With respect to going through the film path to remove dust and emulsion, do you recommend compressed air or simply a clean soft brush or some other method?

I do have a film or two with sound so time will tell. The home videos are all silent and those are what I’m most interested in.

I’m in NE PA (Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area) so Wildwood NJ is about a four hour trip for me. But thanks for sharing about the film gathering.

[Steve Klare]

Hi Ed,

I use a big-ish camel hair artists brush. Many people use canned air, which is fine too. Mechanically compressed air may have lubricating oils along with the air, so canned is much better.

I know your neighborhood well: My son went to college in Indiana, almost out to Chicago, so I passed through on I-80 at least twice per year. There's a sign on I-80 in the Delaware Water Gap just after the bridge: "Ohio: 311 miles". Every time I saw that sign I thought "This will be a lonnnng day!".

[Steve Klare]

A friend was cleaning out her garage this weekend, so through her generosity I have now joined the Canned Air Crowd myself!

[Ed Slosky]

Thanks for the info Steve. As for I-80 that’s quite the road. Always feels like it takes forever just to get to State College let alone IUP. Much like I-95 S to FL…at some point you realize there’s not much around, this is going to be a long drive, and you better not doze off!

Anyway, after the “artists cleaning,” (I opted for the paint brush; I’ve got an air compressor but it didn’t look too bad and I didn’t want that to be too aggressive) I set the beast up and strung a film in it. It was my oldest one…develop by sometime in 1925, no other info. Machine ran well as I tested it before I bought it. Set it up at home and it came right on but I’m watching it for a few seconds and I’m thinking this is too fast. I noted there was one way to thread for sound and another way to thread for silent. I thought the threading gave a different ratio and hence a different speed (evidently not so). Upon examining the machine closer at home now I see a dial for sound and silent. No big deal I thought so I shut it off and switched to silent, which I did not do on the test drive as this is the first time I noticed that switch.

Turned the machine back on and I can hear the motor running and the lamp is on but nothing is turning. Swindled again I thought! Meanwhile I’m looking at this thing still on trying to jolt it, trying to pull the band, anything to get it to turn and still nothing. Keep in mind the lamp is still lit (you’ll have to excuse my novice brain here). So I shut it down and figured a gear must be gone in there or something’s not lining up right; who knows? But time to figure out how this comes apart.

For whatever reason I turn it back on, without the film in it now and just turn the feed knob a bit and presto…it starts spinning. So I said to myself, fixed for now. Just load the film, turn the motor on, turn the knob, and light the lamp. I reload the 1925 film and snap. There was another issue - and I should’ve known better but I ignored it (novice!). When the film was coming off the reel it was a bit tight. I believe there is just a bit of rust on the reel and that was enough to break the film. Well that and the fact that two frames melted from that time I had the machine on when it was not moving! Lessons learned the hard way, of course.

So I put away the 1925 reel and tried one from 1942 and it went beautifully. But it doesn’t end there. My wife decided to record some of it on her iPad. And when I saw that, it actually looked pretty good. So I tried to save it and play it on the computer. Not so says Bill Gates - pay a dollar for some program in order to play a video; are you kidding me?

By now it’s 10 pm thanks to the clock change and I’ve got work at 7 am. It’ll all have to wait until another time! If not for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all haha!

By the way, I’m still not done with that 1925 reel. I plan to “unreel” it by hand and “re-reel” it on another empty non-rusty spool I have and give it another go. I just might have to find someone to splice it. At least it broke pretty early in the film.

[Steve Klare]

You should take good care of that 1925 film. 16mm was introduced in 1923 so you have a very, very early example!

In a lot of ways, 16mm was the camcorder/cellphone camera of that era: so much smaller and lighter and cheaper than 35mm that all of a sudden it became much more feasible for ordinary people to use it to record daily life. Professionals of the era actually looked down on it as sub-standard: it took them a while to get the idea that a portable motion-picture format opened up all sorts of possibilities that 35mm just couldn't allow. (For example, WW2 combat camera work used a great deal of 16mm film because it was excellent for filming on the run.)

I believe the oldest 16mm I have is from the 1930s. It's also somebody's home movie: a bunch of architects out on a fishing trip!