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Topic: Peerless Magnarc Color

Adam Fraser
Master Film Handler

Posts: 499
From: Houghton Lake, MI, USA
Registered: Dec 2001

posted 01-23-2002 12:51 AM

I was looking under the pictures section of this website when i came across the Cape theatre's booth... when were peerless magnarcs silver or are they painted by the owner of that theatre? Ours are flat black in color, yellow handled, with xenon conversion. I would like to know anything i could about the history of equipment in our booth. I think there is a partial picture of our lamphouses under the "tour" section of our website.

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Adam Fraser
www.pinestheatre.com

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Paul G. Thompson
The Weenie Man

Posts: 4718
From: Mount Vernon WA USA
Registered: Nov 2000

posted 01-23-2002 01:05 AM

It might depend on the vintage. I have seen several different color combinations.

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Scott Norwood
Film God

Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99

posted 01-23-2002 05:53 AM

The ones at the Cape Cinema were painted. I assume that this was done as an attempt at rust-proofing, since the theatre is only open seasonally (April->October) and is in a salty-air location. The projector housings and reel magazines were painted, too. it looks weird, but there's no rust...

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Robert Throop
Master Film Handler

Posts: 412
From: Vernon, NY USA
Registered: Jun 99

posted 01-23-2002 07:10 AM

The later Magnarcs were painted gray. The ones made by Peerless had yellow knobs. After Strong bought them out the knobs were metal.

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Bob Throop

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Josh Jones
Redhat

Posts: 1207
From: Plano, TX
Registered: Apr 2000

posted 01-23-2002 07:42 AM

Some people also agree that the lamps with the metal knobs were made by Strong and are inferior to peerless lamps. mine have metal knobs, but the castings are still marked J.E.Mcauley, so are they still true peerlesses? They are also grey in color.

Josh

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Gordon McLeod
Film God

Posts: 9532
From: Toronto Ontario Canada
Registered: Jun 99

posted 01-23-2002 08:13 AM

For a period they also had grey or white or sort of a lavender coloured door on them and the chrome on the top was either vented behind them and the glass magnarc logo was in a self contained metal frame and others it was jutting out from the exhaust stack and the chrome grill was replaced by two or three chrome strips

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Adam Fraser
Master Film Handler

Posts: 499
From: Houghton Lake, MI, USA
Registered: Dec 2001

posted 01-23-2002 10:57 AM

Thanks for the info

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Adam Fraser
www.pinestheatre.com

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Bob Koch
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 183
From: williams ca
Registered: Nov 2001

posted 01-23-2002 08:17 PM

The original Peerless Magnarc was marketed in late 1931 maybe early 32 by JE Macauley of Chicago.The original and for a couple of years after had a crank with their original yellow handle where the positive adjustment on the front of the lamp is now with the round knob. This lamp had no adjustment, lateral or vertical, of the negative carbon. The negative casting could be moved,not during operation by loosening the nuts on the back and there was enough play to move the neg carbon slightly. Later 1936 or so they put the eccentric bushing with the pin on it to give you a pretty good adjustment,although not when you were operating.{a bunch of us more adventurous youths found a wing nut at the hardware store and then we could keep a square face on the positive crater even when using carbon savers.These early lamps got their name from the practice of using a primative electromagnet using the negative asbestos cable under a old horseshoe magnet. This was supposed to pull the tail flame from the Suprex arc of the day up out of the way of the gas ball in the positive crater which was the source of illumination of the suprex arc, the first copper coated carbons with a core. The lamp was great and far superior to any thing at the time. The Brenkert Enarc was good but the feeding could be erratic, the Magnarc with a good dc source[mg set] would demand very little manual attention. After the war National Theatre Supply got the rights to manufacture this lamp from Mcauley and changed the horseshoe magnet to a cylindrical one of Alnico 5 and was adjustable to place the tailflame wherever you wanted it.They also made the negative carriage adjustable as we rubes had done years before with the wingnuts. They also changed the colors from the perfectly adequate black crackle to these grays silver et al about 1951-2. They also put warning plastic bulbs on the back door to tell you if you had enough trim in it.A real deal; this had to be the original yuppie who did this. I`d sure like to see one of these with a zenon conversion.[I don`t know why;just because I`ve never seen one I guess].

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Adam Fraser
Master Film Handler

Posts: 499
From: Houghton Lake, MI, USA
Registered: Dec 2001

posted 01-23-2002 11:20 PM

Bob, if you are ever in northern Michigan, stop by our theatre. Our Magnarcs have a Kniesly (I think that is it) Xenon conversion, which was done 10-15 years ago. We use Osram XBO 2000 watt xenon lamps.

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Adam Fraser
www.pinestheatre.com

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Jon Miller
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 973
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Registered: Sep 1999

posted 01-23-2002 11:22 PM

Here's some historical tidbits on the Peerless Magnarc, courtesy of the US Patent and Trademark office...

Patent number 2,097,767 pretty much describes a type "E" Magnarc (click on Images to view the drawings; your computer should have the QuickTime plugin in order to view the image).

Magnetic stabilization is covered in patent number 2,115,688

Bob, or anyone else who might know--Did the Magnarc series start at type "A," or was type "A" the first Peerless carbon-arc lamp (not a Magnarc)? I thought type "E" was the first Magnarc model.

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Gordon McLeod
Film God

Posts: 9532
From: Toronto Ontario Canada
Registered: Jun 99

posted 01-24-2002 09:06 AM

The first peerless was a lowintesity lamphouse and the second was a large condensor type that looked like the big one that Simplex had made for them by hall and connoly
When the magnarc became famous there was also the peerless hycandescent condensor lamphouse as well

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Frank Angel
Film God

Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 01-25-2002 03:40 AM

Our's Peerless lamphouses are krinkle gray with the yellow knobs, adjustable negative feed assembly (off-center cam at the bottom of the mounting) and a big red horse-shoe magnet behind the reflector. I can't be sure if the gray is the original color because we purchased everything in the booth used from Sol Tanney at Star Cinema. He was a terrific mechanic and would replace all warn gears and re-nickle those warranting replacement. He repainted the housings, but I am not sure if he was true to the original colors. When you assembled a system from him, the heads and the lamphouse all matched, so the gray probably isn't an original color.

We upgraded our lamphouses which originally burned only 55amps, to burn 80amps by replacing the negative assembly and changing the clamp block in the negative support casting to accomodate the larger diameter carbons. We upped the voltage to 45v (as much as the rods will stand before spitting off pieces of carbon) which, when burning 80amps, gives us a nice 3600watt burn -- just a bit shy of the 4000w xenon that would be used to replace the carbon arc system if we should ever decide to do that (not likely). The drive motors don't seem to mind the higher voltage.

Someone once was willing to give us two of those Ashcraft drive-in units (I think they burned 180amps), but the silver jaws were gone and I heard that they were very difficult to find and then even if you did, they were very expensive. The cost of the carbons is no joke either.

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