Elmo GS 1200 Scratching Amazement !!!

[Mark Todd]

On the Film forums most are aware of the two main places the GS1200 Scratches, first and quite quickly the inlete shute.

And a fair while after but quite bad once it gets going, The 2nd end of the top sprocket shue.

You can buy both parts with rollers in or retro fit rollers in those places yourself etc.

There are a couple of other places after much more use, but not too bad.

I was just looking at another GS1200 for sale on ebay UK and again as in it seems 90% + of these machines even from collectors and machines you can work out were used or had collections with them.

BUT !!! Neither of the two main scratch culprits spots have been tackled at all, in all those years and miles of films going through !!!

Well we buy the films and you can usually quickly tell the thinner to heavier wear on the right of the picture from the GS machines green plastic parts.

Now hands up I suffer from obsessional things that gets in to Cine here too so I am on red alert all of the time re scratching and know all of my films scratch
wise.

I even recently bought back a film off a cine friend I had sold to them 20 odd years ago and I still have a scratch memory ( there was one in the negtaive mark ) of this film, though my memory in other ways is impossibly poor !!!

I`m always loosing films, getting them mixed up etc, you name it !!! but scratches !!!

Now I know I am wittering on, but I wonder why there are so many people who watch thier films and there comes a point each time they watch a new scratch shows up or those there they watched show up are then made even heavier and overlaid but just keep on going with no effort to address it.

As you can see if I scratch a film and I have done odd ones but not badly ( usually after the gate jobs you did not know about etc ) I can`t use the machine until its tracked down and sorted out.

So hence the Amazement re the number of machines merrily marking prints again and again, even in collections that were bought new and lines regualrly put on to be seen !!!

I`d better put the Video Projector on now, and try to calm down !!!

Best Mark.

[David Roberts]

Hello Mark,
Years ago,my st1200 put two "dot" green scratches on about a third of all my films ,before I realised and stopped using it. I would think this was an issue with the lower loop but I lost faith in the machine,and just couldnt bring myself to use it again.
I think we must all be obsessed with scratching,and quite rightly too. Once a machine has scratched,it would take a lot for me to trust it again.

[Mark Todd]

Hi David, it was the lower loop, I think, the earlier ST1200`s have an issue on the green guide just after the gate, where the forward loop sits before going in to the soundhead.

It soon wears in to it and not sort of wide enough. Its a begger as after the gate as well.

The later 1200D`s and HDs, they improved that green bit but you still need to keep an eye on it.

Also on the earlier ST1200 with the gap before the 2nd sprocket you can get issues as the alone flap under the sprocket wears more.

There was an upgrade you could buy so the green guide goes right along like later machines.

If anyones got an earlier 1200 its worth taking that green sat upon loop guide after the gate out and checking the wear.

Best Mark.