Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Simplex 35 PR1014

This is topic Simplex 35 PR1014 in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Richard Edward Wells III (Member # 2990) on 08-22-2005, 12:08 AM:

Ok, I just transferred to a new theater in the same chain and they have the oldest projection equipment (with the latest available DTS units), and I was just wondering how to make the fine adjustments for the lens positioning, if its even possible... today was my first day and I saw one print that had terrible bleeding on the top curtain and a huge black space on the bottom screen.. is it just the aperture plate or is there a way to adjust these?

Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 08-22-2005, 12:27 AM:

hey Rich!

1. Which theatre?

2. Pedestal or console?

-Aaron

Posted by Richard Edward Wells III (Member # 2990) on 08-22-2005, 01:01 AM:

Hey, Aaron

It's the Roxy Stadium 11 in Camarillo, and I'm not sure I follow about the pedestal or console.

Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 08-22-2005, 01:08 AM:

Consoles are what you had for lamphouses at Clover and Airport. I am going to assume that you have them here.

Is the picture this way for both flat and scope? If so, then the tilt likely needs to be adjusted.

If the problem is one lens only, then most likely the wrong aperture plate is in (maybe from another auditorium).

-Aaron

Posted by Andrew McCrea (Member # 674) on 07-25-2006, 08:30 PM:

Just out of curiousity: What was the first production year of the Simplex 35?

Posted by Fred Georges (Member # 505) on 07-25-2006, 09:55 PM:

The Simplex XL (Grand Daddy to the Simplex 35) started production in 1949. [Big Grin]

Posted by Andrew McCrea (Member # 674) on 07-25-2006, 10:41 PM:

I knew that about the XL, but I'm wondering about the actual Simplex 35 machine.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 07-25-2006, 10:51 PM:

After 1967 and before 1969. Louis

Posted by Jon Miller (Member # 163) on 07-26-2006, 07:48 PM:

1966, maybe? The Simplex 35 instruction manual in my collection is dated August 1966.

Posted by Bernie Anderson Jr (Member # 410) on 07-27-2006, 04:30 PM:

Just because they're old doesn't mean a thing. I'd rather have old machines over any of the new garbage that strong is making. I'll put my 75 year old super simplex's up againstany of the new machines today.

Bernie

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 07-27-2006, 11:05 PM:

And remember that the PR1014 is a current-production item. You can go out right now and buy them brand new. It is a perfectly good machine as long as it is maintained properly.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 07-28-2006, 01:53 AM:

NOW .. with the topic on the Simplex XL frame (which includes from the XL, PR-1014,1018,1050,1060, and the Mil2k variety ... and we could touch on the Apogee some) I have to touch on a important area of this frame and thatis the intermittent assembly.

Now, once again, having no professional training per such and just learning stuff by doing in all of these years, I've develped a threading habit with the framing position of the Frame Knob - and that is to be able to read the word "FRAME" when setting the intermittent and lacing up the head.

I've always done this so for two reasons:

1- the frame knob travel with be in the middle so that out of frame occurances can have crank travel in either direction, and

2- that the assembly is receiving the best oiling from the delivery tube to the catch that is mounted on the assembly mainframe just behind the flywheel-knowing that the oil pools there from the down tube and is spiral fed into the assembly by the rotation of the camshaft, where one can see the oil exit out of the mainframe from the two small holes above the assembly main drive gear that is being driven from the vertical shaft.

When I see oil gush out of those two hole mentioned above, I know that the assembly is getting well fed with oil-being that it isn't a sealed assembly as with Century, Christie, Cinemeccanicas and a host of other manufacturers.

What I'm getting at is that I feel that this is the best preventive maintenance with the assembly to where I have a slight cringe when seeing a frameknob cranked to where it's off to one extreme or another.

True, I bet that when IPC built the first XL in 1949, that they thought of this oiling method to be maintained with the assembly cranked in either extreme and left there, and why that oil catch is constructed to catch the oil in any angle that the assembly is positioned, but I've always like it in the middle for the two reasone above mentioned.

Just some thought to present to the forum on the topic of the XL mainframe.

thx-monte

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 07-28-2006, 06:26 AM:

quote: Bernie Anderson Jr
Just because they're old doesn't mean a thing. I'd rather have old machines over any of the new garbage that strong is making. I'll put my 75 year old super simplex's up againstany of the new machines today.

Hi Bernie, haven't seen you for a long time. I've been over a couple of times since, but couldn't manage to arrange it for a day when there was something on at the UCAC. I saw Bob and Mitchell at Suffern in May.

Where are the 75 year old machines; are these at home, or in a theatre?

I know of three places here that were running 1930s machines until about three years or so ago, but all have now re-equipped, though I think one of them may still have one of the old machines in place, and usable.

Posted by Dominic Espinosa (Member # 2122) on 07-29-2006, 01:23 PM:

If the aperture plate is in fact the right one for that house before you go cutting a new one check to see that the lens collar isn't simply worn to the point the lens isn't sitting square in the barrel.

I've had a couple houses like that where the lens was dead on at the time the plate was cut but unless you swap it with some test film in the gate you'll never get it in exactly the same way since you've gotta hold it up and over and just right before you tighten the barrel.

I'm wondering if your lens is in crooked.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 07-29-2006, 04:13 PM:

Monte: as a fellow old-timer, at least in temperment, I agree with you about centering, which must have been common at the time given what obsolete projectors were typical then.

However, as a practical matter, a gear train running in oil shouldn't care, unlike an E7. The intermittent, if it got any oil at all, would be adequately protected. Remember oil functions "as a thin cushion." This is why Lubriplate is a no-no in Centurys. (Also why the large pot of Century gear lube didn't work for ORC; it cavitated.) Louis