Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Century MSC --- Vertical Unsteadiness

This is topic Century MSC --- Vertical Unsteadiness in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Carey Barber (Member # 1586) on 09-05-2009, 08:32 AM:

Does anyone have any tips on improving the vertical steadiness of a Century MSC?

We adjust the tension on the bands, and that sometimes helps a little, but unsteadiness remains one of our recurring presentation issues.

These machines are still fairly new to me.

We do clean with FilmGuard.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 09-05-2009, 11:48 AM:

First run a known piece of dead steady film such as RP-40, dye transfer color or similar material. It's hard to see the perfs on a Century so you really can't go by that although if you can even see a little of them then you can tell... film or projector. RP-40 is available at many places and by mail order. If you can see the perfs and they are dead steady then the bounce is in the print and it is not at all uncommon these days. There are quite a number of things on an MSC than could also cause this problem but first things first... the film test is necessary to see if it's your release prints that have the unsteadiness or if it's in the projector. This way you won't be going on a wild goose chase... or calling your tech in for naught.

Mark

Posted by Bob Koch (Member # 1062) on 09-05-2009, 07:39 PM:

Take a magnifier and examine the intermittent sprocket teeth, they could be badly undercut. You probably havent been ther very long so these things probably happened before. The projector is very noisy with film and quiet witout.