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Author Topic: Perforated Scratch. Please help Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 04-25-2011 08:18 PM                     You could take out all the sprockets and pad rollers but it is such a PITA to do and to get them all back in and aligned correctly that it isn't worth doing, especially when you have several projectors to clean. Just get in there with a shop rag and do the best you can. You can wrap the end of the rag around the end of a pencil or something if it helps. If it's any consolation, a bit of dirt or grease hiding in the nooks and crannies isn't going to kill you so long as the rest of the projector is clean and you take care of the sprockets, pad rollers, gate and sound drum, etc. If you clean a little bit every day, eventually, you will get most of the crud out of the projector. The key to keeping them clean is consistency. If you clean a little every day, you will end up doing LESS work in the long run because the projectors never even get dirty in the first place. If you let the projectors get dirty you will find an endless supply of dirty, greasy crap hiding in every conceivable place. You will spend an eternity cleaning them and you will seemingly never get it all. My best advice is to do what I said above. Do a major cleanout, first. Then, make sure the projectors are wiped out before every show. (This takes, literally, 30 seconds.) Each operator who works a shift is responsible for taking apart one projector and cleaning it, top to bottom before he goes home. If there are two shifts per day, that means that 14 projectors will get cleaned once per week in addition to the pre-show wiping. If you have fewer than 14 machines then each projector will get cleaned even more often. If there are more than 14 you might have to assign two projectors to clean per shift. You do the math and figure out a system to suit your situation. I used to have a couple of theaters on my route near Atlanta. If the kids who run your booth are anything like the kids who ran mine they must be driving you crazy! All I can say is that you need to institute this policy and stick to it. Kill one of them and leave the bloody and broken body lying in the middle of the booth floor with a sign written in his blood, "Didn't clean the projectors like I told him!" They'll get the message right quick! Kidding aside, if you institute a cleaning policy like I suggest (or one of your own design) your operators will find out that they are doing LESS work and they will be doing a better job as well!  |  IP: Logged Tony Gallimore Expert Film Handler Posts: 108 From: Willis, Virginia, USA Registered: Jul 2009 posted 04-25-2011 09:56 PM                     Jack, I know many will cringe at the thought just as I did at first... but several years ago I was told as projectionist to wash the machines down if they had accumulated gum and grime with auto engine degreaser. The gentleman who told me to do this was owner of the theatre and had owned several screens for a number of years. To my surprise the inside paint job looked like new after a good wipe down. Now, understand I avoided directing the degreaser toward bearings, the slit lens and any lubricated moving parts. We were also running Century heads rather than Simplex. I was completely blown away at the great job it did. One must only be careful to not to get it on parts that need to remain lubricated. I would give it an A+ for cleaning the inside casement, but do so carefully.  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 04-25-2011 10:11 PM                     The reason Simplex never made a digital projector is because they couldn't figure out how to make them leak oil. Most Simplexes are just going to leak a little bit of oil and that's that. Sure you can do all sorts of things to stop them leaking but most people don't. The inside of a Simplex is just going to have some oil in it. As long as you keep the rest of the projector clean a few drops of oil isn't going to kill you. Do I like it? No! But that's just the way it is. Your best defense is to stay in front of the ball in the first place. Sure, you can use degreaser. But I would recommend you apply it to a rag and wipe in inside the projector. One wrong spray and you could end up causing big problems.  |  IP: Logged Jack Terrell Film Handler Posts: 7 From: Atlanta, GA, United States Registered: Apr 2011 posted 04-26-2011 12:14 AM                     It would be nice to have the simplexes look all shiny, but I don't want to either dry out anything or have to realign everything. I have set up a task list where one projector gets cleaned a day between two projectionist. I split it so that one person detail cleans the heads and the motor and the other wipes the chasis, dusts, wipes rollers brains and platters and checks auditorium quality, bulbs etc. And then there's additional tasks to keep the booth clean. I did this because the quality of cleaning was so poor, so I in effect slowed em down. Hopefully it's a temporary measure. Also, we blow the projectors with canned air instead of wipe at every thread. Any thoughts? We want to get an air compressor to save on cost. Also, one of my guys wants to open the lamphouse and vacuum dust and "clean" inside. This makes me nervous. Should I be?  |  IP: Logged Martin McCaffery Film God Posts: 2481 From: Montgomery, AL Registered: Jun 99 posted 04-26-2011 08:40 AM                        Randy's advice for cleaning is all good, but let me add the obvious: Do not try to clean, especially with a rag, when the machine is running! I know, it sounds idiotic, but remember: Nothing is idiot proof because idiots are just so damned ingenious.  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 04-26-2011 10:08 AM                     Canned air or air compressors are one of those things that I only use occasionally. It's good for getting dust out of nooks and crannies or for dusting photographic negatives, etc., but it's not good for general use. There are three things you have to be careful about when you use air to clean: 1) It can blow dirt farther INTO the machine. 90% of the dirt goes out of the machine but the other 10% gets impacted into the bearings and moving parts. You have to watch out where you aim the nozzle to prevent this. 2) The stream of air can contain microscopic particles of dust and water. Remember, when you compress air you are also compressing the water vapor in the air. That vapor turns back into liquid and gets carried right along with the stream. Tiny, little particles of dust and water vapor are getting blown at a speed of 1,000 MPH directly into the surface of the object you are trying to clean. You are basically sand blasting your projectors. You can put water traps and dust filters on your compressor but it just adds more expense and trouble. 3) When you blow all that dust and dirt out of a projector, where does it go? It doesn't disappear. It goes up in the air. Then, later, it settles somewhere... all over everything else in the booth. It gets pulled into your amplifiers and sound gear. It coats the top of the projector, lamphouse and goes all over your booth windows. Using air to clean is fine for small things. Carefully blowing dust off a lens or blasting water out of a small part you are trying to clean but, for general cleaning, using air actually makes MORE work than it saves. Besides, shop rags are cheap. If you look around at the auto parts stores and places like that, you can find them by the bundle for about $20. Just use them and throw them away if you want. If you want to launder them and use them again, have your boss give you $5.00 out of office supplies money and take them to the local laundromat. (Do this at night!) I've got an old Simplex. It looks like Hell to me. I grew up looking at brand new, shiny projectors. Grungy, old projectors just make me cringe. I know that the film-bearing parts are all clean and they work just the way I want them to but that little puddle of oil inside the projector still makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up every time I see it. I just have to resign myself that this projector is always going to be like this and I just have to keep cleaning it. In all this time, the best thing I have found to keep them clean is persistence. The good news is that persistence doesn't cost anything. Bosses like it when you don't spend money! If your guy wants to clean out the inside of the lamphouses, there's nothing wrong with that if he can do it without killing himself or damaging the machine. To be honest, I can buy another machine but, if the kid kills himself, I have to do a whole lot of paperwork! You know your guy better than I do. If he can do the job well and do it right, it's probably high time the inside of the lamphouses got cleaned. Carefully clean the reflectors with 90% alcohol but be sure not to touch the xenon lamps. Use a rag to wipe out the dust on the rest of the surfaces. A little bit of "Formula 409" won't hurt if you keep it away from the electrical parts. A vacuum cleaner is all right if the lamphouse is really dirty but, as always, be really careful! Like Martin says: Turn off the power whenever your hands or anything but film are inside the projector! If you are doing anything more involved than threading or normally operating the projector, turn off the breakers. I don't mind cleaning up the blood as much as I hate doing paperwork!  |  IP: Logged Ian Parfrey Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1049 From: Imbil Australia 26 deg 27' 42.66" S 152 deg 42' 23.40" E Registered: Feb 2009 posted 04-26-2011 04:44 PM                     ....and if your guys are inside the lamphouse, PUT THE PROTECTIVE COVER OVER THE LAMP and wear the BALLISTIC P.P.E! (Personal Protective Equipment) Xenons can make a hell of a mess when they go off and your guys DO NOT want to be unprotected when inside there if the lamp decides to itself. As Randy said, the paperwork is horrendous quite apart from eating into after hours drinking time  |  IP: Logged Robert Koch Film Handler Posts: 93 From: Williams Ca USA Registered: Apr 2006 posted 05-01-2011 08:31 PM                     "Someone will undoubtedly come on after me whining that the design is wonderful and the operator isn't keeping it clean, but regardless the design is stupid because it forces people to keep them perfectly clean all the time, and with platters running a couple of miles of film through the soundhead at one time, the embedding of dirt is pretty much a given". The above from your letter pretty much says it all. This was designed long before you were born and I was still in Jr High school. Different era. Projectionist were still getting shipments on 1000 foot reels and doubling them up,a practice somme frowned upon. The concept of running miles of film thru one reproducer and projecting into 14 200 seat auditoriums presidrd over by concession stand personnel was certainly not even considered as possible in 1936.Or sure as hell not probable In that day they only had 2 projectors and reproducers to keep clean and plenty of time to clean while one projector was idle. If this is whining so be it.You and I both know the powers that be do not want to have anything to do with advancing technology in the projection room Thats as true now as it was when I still had all black hair. You know it and I know it. It all comes down to paying a design team to put a great deal of expense and effort into something these bastards won`t buy anyway. To coin a phrase I think you are beating a dead horse. As you state this was never designed for what it is expected to do now..  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 05-01-2011 08:41 PM                     Robert, apparently I was not clear enough. There are many other GOOD soundhead designs out there (Century, Cinemeccannica, Kinoton, etc). There is no excuse why these soundhead designs were not retired 30+ years ago when large reels and platters became the standard.  |  IP: Logged Louis Bornwasser Film God Posts: 4441 From: prospect ky usa Registered: Mar 2005 posted 05-02-2011 12:39 PM                        Back on topic: is this guy's problem resolved? I still think it is platter misthreading. As regards RCA/Simplex, While we are primarily Century, the few Simplexes and RCAs around here do not have a problem with destroying film. Wow & flutter, perhaps, but not damage. w&f are unavoidable with the design; the much superior Davis bridge having been patented by Cetury/Westrex. Again, proper maintneance and instruction yield good results. Not hard really! Louis  |  IP: Logged

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