What contribution did you make today, to our wonderful hobby ?

[Melvin England]

I thought I would start this thread in the same spirit as "What 8mm films did you see last night?"..........except actually projecting films is banned from this thread!!

So I ask the question........What contribution did you make today, to our wonderful hobby? What were you meddling with that was to do with the hobby that was not actually projecting films. Was it a day spent rewinding? Cleaning some newly acquired feature? What then ?

For me, I have just received a copy of She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. The 4x 400' black and white version of what was a color film. It was from Ebay.... and it had a bit of a pong to it. The boxes has that awful dank, wiffy smell to them and the films smelt as though they had never seen film cleaner. I had several days previously, projected the film and it ran quite well, but was not going to tolerate the odour wreaking out the Man Cave!

So......

Out of the boxes they came. The boxes were then wiped down with one of those anti bacterial wipes, then internally sprayed with a little Febreze to sweeten them up.....and left for a period of time to let the air get to them.

The film was transferred temporarily to four take up spools and their original manky ones dunked in a bowl of warm water with a bit of liquid and given a good clean. Then ran under a clean tap to get rid of the suds, wiped again, and allowed to dry naturally.

The film, of course, was given a good dose of cleaner and wiped, and allowed to vent in the open air for a little while, too. Net result..... sweet smelling boxes, clean spools, and film smelling like film should smell. I just need to project them again sometime!

[Douglas Meltzer]

Melvin,

You are so right about there being more to what makes this hobby so enjoyable than just watching films. Often a better part of the day can be spent repairing a projector, cleaning old films, improving your sound system or working on your screening room.
I'm currently in the early stages of re-recording an Italian Super 8mm digest of the 1966 science fiction film War of the Planets (I diafanoidi vengono da Marte). I've already filmed the digest off the screen (with the both the GS-1200 and the camera running at 23.976 fps). Now I'm working in Adobe Premiere to match the scenes with those from the English language DVD. When that's done, I'll use the GS to record the new soundtrack. This is time consuming, however I really enjoy these projects.

Doug

[Paul Adsett]

Today I added a couple of touches to my screening room in the form of equipment signs that I downloaded from the web, framed them, and mounted to the entrance way to the room:

[Janice Glesser]

This hobby lends itself to lots of "to-do's." This week the belt broke on my Elmo 100SM (I call this projector my "Mini Elmo"). This was actually the second belt to brake in the last month. My first replacement belt wasn't in good shape to begin with... so I wasn't surprised it broke also. So this time I made up one of my DIY Urethane belts. It's running quiet and smooth as ever now.

[Chip Gelmini]

Who knew that preventative maintenance could be so important, challenging, and fun. We can always learn!

I am proud to know my friends are doing just that who participate in this forum.

[Dominique De Bast]

Today, I sent a GS 800 to Germany to have the three blade shutter replaced by a two/three one. And last week, I got my Beaulieu super 8 camera back from Norway after it had been repaired by Björn Anderssen. I don't know if that counts totally since I don't do that myself but it's a kind of contribution.

[Shane C. Collins]

Yesterday (Mother's Day) I filmed relatives sitting in our yard, etc. I ran a brand new roll of Kodak Ektachrome 100D reversal film. Today I shipped the film to Spectra Film and Video in Ca. So I'd say that was a good contribution to this wonderful hobby. In the near future I plan to send out for service, my Bolex P2 camera to the gentleman in Arizona who services Bolex cameras. Then I'll be able to film with the P2. I'm excited to try a roll of Ektachrome 100D for regular 8 when it's back in stock! And before I forget, last month I helped out a forum member here by sending some Bolex 18-5 projector parts!
PS: Paul your theater signs are awesome! What a nice touch!

[Carter Bradley]

Today I completed a long overdue project of cataloging my 633 400' sound films so I can easily pull titles when needed. I now have a go-to source of finding prints, and was amazed at how my collection has grown since 1975 when I received my first three sound films for Christmas, Castle Films 200' digests "Doom of Dracula," and "Abbott & Costello meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," and the Woody Woodpecker cartoon, "Misguided Missile." An example of my numbering system: On my inventory, I have indicated multiple reel titles, such as the Elvis feature, "Blue Hawaii" as 4249/1 - through 4249/5. I "borrowed" Universal 8's Super 400 series in numbering, so this example reflects that "Blue Hawaii" is housed on five 400' reels, and this title is the 249th in my collection. Given that I own titles with multiple reels, my "Super 8 storage vault," (the hall closet with added shelving and improved ventilation), houses over 800 separate reels in storage cases. Now on to cataloging my over 100 600' sound titles!

[Melvin England]

Carter, I have just done a small calculation.

Based on 17 minutes per 400' you have 7.47 NONE STOP DAYS of projection to view your collection! At least that takes care of another week of lock-down!

Then there are the 100x 600' ...................!!!!!!


( The calculation.... 633x17 = 10761 minutes, which is 179.35 hours, which is 7.47 days!)

(Sounds like one hell of a collection! RESPECT to you Carter!)

[Carter Bradley]

Thank you for doing the math, Melvin. I guess I had better start my marathon film watching. LOL!

[Brian Fretwell]

I hope you have enough spare lamps (or xenon) at a rated 50hrs per halogen that's almost 4 used up without the 600ft ones!!!

[Dominique De Bast]

I fixed three projectors. First, an Eiki (16 mm, I know, we're in the 8 mm section 😉) : I put the spring correctly back to the moving plastic part (I don't know the name) below the feeding sprocket. I had stupidely disambled a while ago all that area to fix a trouble that appeared to come from another place. Since then, the part related to the spring didn't hold firmly and I had to keep it closed with my finger during each film threading. It's back to normal, now. Then a Silma super 8 : the threading system was locked and I found (with some trials and ertors, like for the Eiki) the way to make it work again. Last, an Eumig standard/regular 8 projector. The film didn't thread properly and the picture was not sharp on both sides. I have no Idea how I fixed that. To be more precise, it seems that it fixed itself just by removing and putting back the gate and by moving the threading part, two "actions" I tried several times before without success but this time, Sainte Pelloche (Sant Stock) was with me 😜

[Joe Caruso]

I have taken my collection, re-organized on film charts, restored and somewhat upgraded the boxes, listed every film code information with exact detail mind you, and this is on-going of course. Shorty

[Chip Gelmini]

I recently removed my GS 1200 projectors from my twin towers and reinstall my original ST 1200 HD's the plan is to use the projectors every three months and swap them during the year so that they don't rot away from lack of use if you have multiple projector is perhaps you might like to consider the same idea

[Brian Fretwell]

I tend (with normal halogen lamps) to rotate to another projector whenever one lamps fails.