Newbie - Lint or hair keeps coming back in my Sankyo 2000H, what to do?

[Ken Brown]

Hi,

I recently purchased a Sankyo 2000H (thanks to the excellent advice given to me on this forum last month), and it seems to work very well. Except this piece of something keeps showing up when projecting.

I removed the lens, and used one of those air blowers (with a bulb at one end that you squeeze) to blow stuff around. Start it up and it's gone ... for a while. But invariably it comes back, whatever it is.

What can I do to get rid of it, permanently? I have a powerful blower I use to clean computer cases and other equipment, but I'm wary to use such a thing on this. Is there something else I need to take apart to better clean the projection area?

Thanks for any suggestions; I'm at a loss what else to try.

Ken

[Nantawat Kittiwarakul]

There might be just TONS of hair/dirt packed in the gate that would need more than compressed air to dislodge them out. A film gate brush would do a better job in this case.
In the worse case, there might be a sharp edge in the gate that keep scraping the film, thus continuously feeding new lints into the gate.

[Maurice Leakey]

Ken
Have you got a manual? If not, you can get one from Oldtimer Cameras.
https://www.camera-manual.com/model/...a-manual-11009
There is a full page on care and maintenance.
To clean the aperture section, open out the Pressure Plate and go over the Pressure Plate and Film Guide with a gate brush. Also keep the entire film path clean at all times, if necessary, use a blower brush.

[Chip Gelmini]

Room heat should average 65 degrees to keep humidity and static electricity at bay dust in the air will cling to the film entering the projector we did this in theaters to pevent splice sticking coming off platters causing brain wraps.....

also consider Filmguard lubricant as well.

[Dominique De Bast]

65° F is 18° C. Good to know, I always heard that humidity started at 13° C. It may be wise, indeed to keep the temperature a little bit higher than the minimum.

[Shane C. Collins]

As someone mentioned, you probably have hair and other pieces of lint stuck in and around the film gate. In the old days many projectors came with small gate brushes. I use one with my projectors, and they work great! Here's a photo showing what my brush looks like. The great thing about this brush is the fact you can change it's angle, or position as needed, to clean in and around the gate, etc. For a reference this brush is only a few inches long.

[Ken Brown]

Thank you, all, for your replies. I do have the manual, and had read the page on maintenance when I first received the projector, but had forgotten about it by now! It contained a lot of terms I didn’t (and still don’t) fully understand, as Maurice also mentioned (‘aperture section’, ‘pressure plate’, and ‘film guide’). They sound semi-understandable, but a photo with each item labeled would have been more helpful than the single, unlabeled photo they have. But I'm sure that was much more difficult to do in the 1960s or '70s.

It did also come with that brush (‘gate brush’ that Maurice and Shane mentioned), so I will try to do what the photo shows and text says, and see what happens.

The room is typically kept at 63-65 degrees this time of year, with humidity generally in the 40%s. I don’t notice static electricity here unless the indoor humidity dips into the 30%s (which it very rarely does).

I’ll fool around with it late today, and post the results. Thank you for the hand holding!

Ken

[Janice Glesser]

Hi Ken... From experience...I don't recommend using a gate brush on the Sankyo 2000H. The claw is easily damaged and can prevent film from threading. Canned air works well but remove the lens and spray directly to the gate opening. Also spray air thru the lamp side of the gate. To clean up the masking edges of the frame opening take a long wooden skewer and wrap a piece of lint-free cloth (old pieces of t-shirts works well) around the tip. I spray some 91% alcohol onto the cloth then insert it thru the lens holder. Move the cloth around all 4 edges to clean off any debris. Then replace the lens.

There is also a heat protection lens in the projector that can become cloudy and dirty. This can be removed as long as you don't use the "Still" feature. Here is a thread from the forum archives on how to remove and clean the heat shield lens:

http://8mmforum.film-tech.com/cgi-bi...c;f=1;t=009936

Just a thought... Check the film itself. I recently was doing a film transfer of my Mom's old 8mm films. After capture I kept seeing a large hair in the middle of the frame and a lot of debris around the edges. Initially I thought it was from my telecine projector... but alas it was on the film itself. After examining the film it turned out the hair and edge debris was from my mom's camera and unfortunately was evident over several reels.

[Chip Gelmini]

Watch for hairs in the gate by simply framing the picture. If the picture goes up and down but the hair does not - then clean the machine. As suggested above if the hair moves with the adjustment then it was the camera gate that had the problem.

This does NOT apply however if you are running Roger Rabbit through your projector because that is a real hare in the gate. 👹

PS....Why does this make me remember the Tex Avery cartoon, "Magical Meistro" ?????? 🤪

[Will Trenfield]

Hello Ken. I have two of these projectors and recently used one to digitise some forty films for a friend. I only had a small hair in the gate on just one film. As Janice has posted, debris could have been present in the cine camera itself due to a lack of cleaning as with some of our old family films. This, though, is on the upper and lower edges of the frame. Did you clean your films before projecting?

[Ken Brown]

I took Janice's advice, and did not use the gate brush (especially considering I really don't know what I'm doing). Instead I dared to use my powerful air blower, blowing at (what I assume is) the gate opening, from the front (through the lens hole) and back.

I only ran about 30 seconds worth of film through, but it looks a lot better, nothing like my above pic. Makes me want to clean the heat protection lens that Janice mentioned (I assume that's the itty bitty little square piece of glass I see). I could now see a visible horizontal strip of slight darkening at the top of the frame (about 5% of the image's height), which might be due to that lens. So I may venture doing that tonight, as she described.

I manually ran a bit of film through a new, dry Pec Pad, and did notice a little bit of darkening of the Pec Pad. So, yeah, the film is likely dirty, even though it has been kept in a metal box the last 40 years. I probably should clean all of them before projecting, but the cleaning fluid (FilmGuard) seems very expensive ($50!), and I don't even have an editor or rewinder or anything to use to easily apply it. So at least for now, I think I'll just run them through as is and see what happens. But if this re-occurs, I've got to suspect that it's coming from the film ....

Hare in the gate -- ouch!

Thanks!

Ken

[Shane C. Collins]

Gate brushes do work better in projectors that allow you to open up the lens barrel assembly. The Sankyo 2000 has very limited space. I use the gate brush when projecting with the Bolex 18-5L. The lens assembly swings wide open for easy cleaning. The Elmo FP8-C dual that I occasionally use does not have a swing away lens. However I've never has issues using the brush with the Elmo.

[Ken Brown]

WOW!

What a difference a day makes! Or, in reality, what a difference cleaning the heat protection lens, along with the gate, makes.

A picture is worth a 1000 words, so I'll let it do the talking. But once again, I want to thank everyone for their replies and suggestions. I couldn't have done it without you!

Before and after (not the identical frames, but close enough to see the huge difference).

[Chip Gelmini]

Q tips in rubbing alcohol work well too

in addition consider Q tips that have the 6 inch extended shaft for ease of getting in tight spaces. Available at medicine shops or on Amazon (not standard drug stores like CVS/ Walgreens)

[Janice Glesser]

Personally I'm not a fan of Q-tips Chip. The cotton from the tip can get caught in the sharp edges of the frame opening and create more fuzz. I guess if you are very careful and check it carefully you can avoid this. There maybe some better cotton swabs available for this purpose that don't fray easily.