Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Problematic polyester print

This is topic Problematic polyester print in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Fredrik Sandstrom (Member # 8171) on 03-09-2015, 12:46 PM:

I have a print that is difficult to handle. It refuses to wind tightly (some reels worse than others) and it's especially difficult to wind it evenly on a core. It displays some spoking as if it were badly warped, but no warping is evident when unwinding.

Sound familiar? It would to me too, if it were not for the fact that this is polyester film! Never in nine years of collecting have I before come across a polyester print with any of these problems.

What do you think?

Posted by Dustin Mitchell (Member # 372) on 03-09-2015, 01:32 PM:

Even light damage to the edges of the film can cause this. Likely what happened is the film was mis-threaded so that it did not register quite right on a sprocket.

Unfortunately, there is no way to fix this.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 03-09-2015, 01:54 PM:

Dustin's got it. Get yourself a magnifying glass and you will probably be able to see some distortion or even slight tearing around one edge of each sprocket hole. If it's severe damage, no magnification is needed.

The problem is, the hole damage makes the film a tiny bit thicker at the edges of the holes, so adjacent layers won't lay flat. If you run the sprocket hole area through two fingers you probably will be able to feel the distortion.

Posted by Fredrik Sandstrom (Member # 8171) on 03-10-2015, 02:06 PM:

Thanks! This indeed seems to be the case. Under visual inspection, the distortion seems very slight, but I can clearly feel it between my fingers on the non-soundtrack side. Thankfully, it runs just fine.