Tweet
A friend of mine has had TWO Wolverines one of which was an absolute lemon and the other is still operational but as the Wolverine can only handle 5" reels MAX and he often is asked to copy home movies that are all on a 7" reel, he lashed out and purchased a Kodak Reelz from Amazon.
From his observations the image quality from the Reelz is better than he could ever achieve on the Wolverines BUT the Reelz was simply NOT able to pull a full 7" reel through and would stop and start and mess around and also simply DID not like "FAT" splices.
To get a 7" reel through at times he would have to "help" the take up spool to run by using his hand. In the end it simply would not even handle a 5" reel.
His Wolverine had a very poor belt on the take up reel and I had made him a replacement belt a year or so ago by using the fuse together belting we can purchase here in Australia from pretty much any of the belting suppliers and it comes in a range of diameters.
Then by using a modified soldering iron tip that has two flats filed opposite each other on a spare tip once the iron is hot enough to melt solder you cut the belting to the correct length allowing for a snug fit around the pulleys.
Ensure that ends of the belt are cut SQUARE and then hold each end of the belting up against the flat faces on the iron tip and when a little bead of melted belting forms quickly push the two ends together to "fuse them" and when COMPLETELY COOL trim off the bulge that has formed with a sharp box cutter and fit to the pulleys.
The trick is to hold the two melted ends together not overly firm but snug and NOT moving...You can purchase a special tool that does this but it costs a LOT.
Once fused test that the join is complete by trying to pull the joint apart...if it withstands that then you are good to GO.
On the dratted Wolverine you cannot easily slip the completed belt over the pulley as there is a bearing on one end and the shaft on the other so you HAVE to do the Fusing with the belt threaded through and need another pair of hands to hold the Wolverine whilst you do the job..NOT easy but doable.
After many hours of work he brought the Wolverine in for another belt as it had broken and once again I went through the process of making another belt for him and we sorted out the Wolverine.
THEN he produced the Kodak REELZ and the story of how the thing just will NOT take up almost anything at all.
So I opened it to check WHY the take up kindle was so hard to turn...nothing obvious at all and the insides look to be much better engineered than the Wolverine.
Some similarities with the actual capture mechanism but vastly different everywhere else.
A small geared motor drive two cogs to drive the spindle of the take up arm and it is an easy matter to remove ONE cog to see why the take-up arm is so stiff to turn.
As when the motor is engaged in rewind mode it really struggles, pop the cog off and the motor runs VERY freely and quite fast. The driven cog was VERY hard to turn so the take up arm had to come off for a closer look.
Easily done by removing the small C clip that retains the cog on the shaft and then 4 very small screws hold a plate in place that provides the indexing of the arm when it is extended out to use.
Once those screws are out the rewind arm comes away and the 6 small screws that hold the cover in place come out and the drive method inside the arm is exposed.
The drive is transmitted to the rewind spindle which has a small clutch as part of it (in keeping with normal film take-up methods) and the drive is via a small toothed rubber belt that is expected to slide around a couple of fixed posts which had some type of grease applied...VERY poor design as a small adjustable roller pressing onto the back of the belt as done in many 8mm & 16mm machines and even on the 35 mm Century I used to use at my cinema had would be much better.
Slipping the belt off just ONE of the fixed spindles left it with enough tension so the teeth would grip and thus drive effectively.
So it was all re-assembled and the arm refitted and then tested out in Rewind mode...A VAST difference and nice steady drive from the take-up spindle and the motor running MUCH faster and obviously very freely.
Now I await the feedback as to whether he can now copy a FULL 7" reel without having to "help" it turn by using his hand.
He prefers to use the REELZ as he ends up with far better quality film transfers.
From his observations the image quality from the Reelz is better than he could ever achieve on the Wolverines BUT the Reelz was simply NOT able to pull a full 7" reel through and would stop and start and mess around and also simply DID not like "FAT" splices.
To get a 7" reel through at times he would have to "help" the take up spool to run by using his hand. In the end it simply would not even handle a 5" reel.
His Wolverine had a very poor belt on the take up reel and I had made him a replacement belt a year or so ago by using the fuse together belting we can purchase here in Australia from pretty much any of the belting suppliers and it comes in a range of diameters.
Then by using a modified soldering iron tip that has two flats filed opposite each other on a spare tip once the iron is hot enough to melt solder you cut the belting to the correct length allowing for a snug fit around the pulleys.
Ensure that ends of the belt are cut SQUARE and then hold each end of the belting up against the flat faces on the iron tip and when a little bead of melted belting forms quickly push the two ends together to "fuse them" and when COMPLETELY COOL trim off the bulge that has formed with a sharp box cutter and fit to the pulleys.
The trick is to hold the two melted ends together not overly firm but snug and NOT moving...You can purchase a special tool that does this but it costs a LOT.
Once fused test that the join is complete by trying to pull the joint apart...if it withstands that then you are good to GO.
On the dratted Wolverine you cannot easily slip the completed belt over the pulley as there is a bearing on one end and the shaft on the other so you HAVE to do the Fusing with the belt threaded through and need another pair of hands to hold the Wolverine whilst you do the job..NOT easy but doable.
After many hours of work he brought the Wolverine in for another belt as it had broken and once again I went through the process of making another belt for him and we sorted out the Wolverine.
THEN he produced the Kodak REELZ and the story of how the thing just will NOT take up almost anything at all.
So I opened it to check WHY the take up kindle was so hard to turn...nothing obvious at all and the insides look to be much better engineered than the Wolverine.
Some similarities with the actual capture mechanism but vastly different everywhere else.
A small geared motor drive two cogs to drive the spindle of the take up arm and it is an easy matter to remove ONE cog to see why the take-up arm is so stiff to turn.
As when the motor is engaged in rewind mode it really struggles, pop the cog off and the motor runs VERY freely and quite fast. The driven cog was VERY hard to turn so the take up arm had to come off for a closer look.
Easily done by removing the small C clip that retains the cog on the shaft and then 4 very small screws hold a plate in place that provides the indexing of the arm when it is extended out to use.
Once those screws are out the rewind arm comes away and the 6 small screws that hold the cover in place come out and the drive method inside the arm is exposed.
The drive is transmitted to the rewind spindle which has a small clutch as part of it (in keeping with normal film take-up methods) and the drive is via a small toothed rubber belt that is expected to slide around a couple of fixed posts which had some type of grease applied...VERY poor design as a small adjustable roller pressing onto the back of the belt as done in many 8mm & 16mm machines and even on the 35 mm Century I used to use at my cinema had would be much better.
Slipping the belt off just ONE of the fixed spindles left it with enough tension so the teeth would grip and thus drive effectively.
So it was all re-assembled and the arm refitted and then tested out in Rewind mode...A VAST difference and nice steady drive from the take-up spindle and the motor running MUCH faster and obviously very freely.
Now I await the feedback as to whether he can now copy a FULL 7" reel without having to "help" it turn by using his hand.
He prefers to use the REELZ as he ends up with far better quality film transfers.
Comment