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Author Topic: Technical Film Systems 35mm FIlm Cleaning Machine Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-10-2008 10:08 PM                     Lipsner Smith (aka Bell and Howell printers) San Lab systems one of the early developers of PTRs all built distiled water cleaning machines They were and are still used by many film abs for cleaning negatives and elements They were expensive to build and did an excellent job for what they were intended to do  |  IP: Logged Steve Beverly Film Handler Posts: 83 From: El Paso, Tx., Registered: Nov 2007 posted 02-11-2008 03:17 AM                     quote: Chris Slycord Why would you buy the thing BEFORE asking about it? Heck, I seem to remember you doing this with your projector setup... having people give you pointers causing you to back pedal and change it after you'd already done the order. Not trying to be mean but just asking. Because it was a PRISTINE 50K machine made 10 to 15 years ago that I picked up for $163 bucks. How badly could I possibly get burnt? Besides from what I'm reading both here and at Cinematography.com, it is exactly what I need. I'll be processing dailies from my film shoots and this thing is great for cleaning my negatives before I print them. I found out these machines were pulled off the market after one of them ruined 50K ft or more of archival OCN at a big facility. The problem stemmed from mold growing in the water for the system which then contaminated the emulsion and as Dominic Case stated at Cinema... "It wouldn't be the first cleaner that people managed to wreck original camera neg on - but 50,000ft of archival neg is a bit like losing a Boeing 747, you'd be grounding the fleet, at least until you knew what happened." TFS is the Roll Royce of film lab equipment so rather than taking a chance with another failure which would lead to catastrophic damage to the immaculate reputation in such a small market, they just shut it down. Their reputation was too important to risk losing customer confidence on such a small element of the product line. They recommended getting a good fungicide to use with it one suggestion was Nolvasan AKA Chlorhexadine. The machine was very well engineered and environmentally friendly BUT we will run some tests before cleaning anything irreplaceable. I have a sneaking suspicion it'll work just fine but better to be safe than sorry.  |  IP: Logged Robert W. Jones Film Handler Posts: 74 From: San Antonio, TX Registered: Mar 2007 posted 02-11-2008 01:06 PM                     I still have a bottle of the old Kodak movie film cleaner (with lubricant) from the 1970's. Contains methyl chloroform. Remember getting a buzz from that stuff.  |  IP: Logged Bill Gabel Film God Posts: 3873 From: Technicolor / Postworks NY, USA Registered: Jan 2002 posted 02-11-2008 02:04 PM                     quote: Steve Beverly Because it was a PRISTINE 50K machine made 10 to 15 years ago that I picked up for $163 bucks. So you got it off of eBay, that seller has been trying to sell that unit for a few months. He had it at a few thousand, no takers.  |  IP: Logged Jeff Taylor Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 601 From: Chatham, NJ/East Hampton, NY Registered: Apr 2000 posted 02-11-2008 02:39 PM                     Yea, I would have thought ICECO might have had some docs on it.  |  IP: Logged Steve Beverly Film Handler Posts: 83 From: El Paso, Tx., Registered: Nov 2007 posted 02-11-2008 10:47 PM                     quote: Bill Gabel So you got it off of eBay, that seller has been trying to sell that unit for a few months. He had it at a few thousand, no takers. Yes, he's sold a few of them prior to this, this one was the last one they had. As for it not selling right away, this is not a unit everyone would be interested in, it's a film cleaner the size of a double wide refrigerator that weighs about 450 lbs. You gotta have the room for it and the need. It was designed for high volume film labs. Then there WAS the archival print incident, and the fact that most people know water will saturate the emulation if left on the film, and find this disconcerting. I'm not surprised it didn't sell but am VERY pleasantly surprised it didn't until I had the cash to buy it.I would have paid more for it if I had to, fortunately I didn't. It will fit nicely in my lab's workflow. We plan on shooting and processing somewhere between 50 to 80 thousand feet of 35mm motion picture film that will then be printed for editing ans screening. A negative film cleaner will be a very useful tool in a dusty environment like a wind blown desert which is just the kind of environment we have in El Paso and the lab is at the northeast edge of town so there's very little to block blowing sand and dust, We WILL have dust in the emulation problems we will have to overcome. Also, because we will be running 2 film processing machines, we want to avoid creating any additional pollutants if at all possible if for nothing else than to be environmentally conscientious. The way the machine works is the film is in contact with the water for a very short time the dried immediately with specially designed air jets, so it not like sticking you film into a dishwasher. TFS is a VERY respected company and I would tend to trust their design is sound and that the mold problem was more of a freak accident than a chronic design flaw, Hell if it hadn't been archival prints that were ruined and just standard prints, no one would have taken any notice except the guys who were having the prints done.  |  IP: Logged

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