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Author
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Topic: Ashcraft advertisment
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Stephen Furley
Film God
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Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002
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posted 08-10-2002 04:08 AM
I like the ashcraft advertisment uploaded as a test by Jon Miller."Our Lamphouses Never Explode!!!" (I can't do the underscore on the last two words) was obviously seen as an important consideration at the time. I have heard that this was much more of a problem with early xenons than it is now. Of the advantages claimed over xenon, were the first two, "They cost less to buy" and "They cost less to operate", really true. It seems hard to believe that these things with all the complexity of the feed mechanisms, plus the rotation and water cooling for the positive could be cheaper to buy than a relativly simple xenon lamphouse. It doesn't say if the cost of the water cooler was included in the price being compared. As for being cheaper to run, if that was true, then carbons must have been very much cheaper then than they are now. I suppose that at that time the staffing of projection rooms would have been the same for carbon or xenon, so there would be no extra labour cost. Does anybody have any price lists for lamphouses, xenon lamps and carbons from this period, so we can make our own comparison? "Union made by skilled American labour" Would you see anything similar in a modern advertisment in the U.S.? Here in England we don't seem too concerned where things are made, (almost everything sold here here seems to be made in China now anyway, and some of it is very good, the days when China just produced junk are now gone), We did have the rather strange habit of stressing "Empire made" long ago. What is the difference between the Super Core-Lite and the Super-Cinex? Does anybody have a xenon advertisment from the same period, it might made an interesting comparison. What was the date of this? The Ashcraft lamps always look rather old-fashioned to me, and I don't think of them as being contemporary with xenons. What became of Ashcraft, are they still around?
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Tim Reed
Better Projection Pays
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Posts: 5246
From: Northampton, PA
Registered: Sep 1999
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posted 08-10-2002 04:38 PM
I liked that ad, too. ![](http://www.film-tech.com/ubb/smile.gif) The primary difference between the Cinex and Corelight was speed. The Cinex was f/2.0 or f/1.8, and the Corelight was really fast, like f/1.4 or f/1.6, or something ridiculous (can't recall offhand the exact numbers). The Super versions had big blowers on top. Ashcraft Company failed in 1972, shortly after Clarence S. Ashcraft passed away. The son ran it into the ground, as I understand. They had developed a xenon lamphouse, with an automatically rotating bulb, of all things. They spent 2 years developing their xenon lamphouse, and only weeks after they announced it, the company folded. The xenon design resembled what would become XeTron's 2000 watt lamphouse, with the bulb mount and reflector that swings open to relamp. I think LP Associates ended up with the Ashcraft design. The last carbon lamphouse Ashcraft ever made, the Super 180 (or was it Super 160 - #$%@* my memory's failing me), was introduced in 1968. It was the last hurrah. Ashcraft lamps were the top of the line, as far as I was concerned. They cost 4 or 5-thousand dollars a pair in the 1960s. Super Corelights hit the streets circa 1963.
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Don Sneed
Master Film Handler
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Posts: 451
From: Texas City, TX, USA
Registered: Aug 2001
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posted 08-11-2002 04:40 PM
Wow, the memories of the Ashcraft Super-Core, these were the lamphouse of lamphouses !! The light output was the greatest, I ran these in Houston at several Drive-In theatres, easy to work on & to clean....I once had a theatre owner/manager, I was a the projectionist, who everynight would come to the booth & demanded I help him down a 6/12-pack with him, Being in my late 20's, this was great, a boss who allows you to drink on the job after the boxoffice close, we once had fog roll in, both of us half drunk running the movie, we were talking about the light output of the lamp, I told the now drunk owner to jump up on the that light beam & walk out to the screen to see how far the light goes before it stops (for those of you that never ran a drive-in, when fog rolls in, you see the light beam but cannot see the screen)...the owner said to me, "NO I won't, I get half way out there, you'll turn the light off then I break a leg".....at that time, being half drunk, that was a funny line, I will always remember that line...the year was winter/1972...I was sorry to see this theatre close in 1977, the Ashcraft lamps & projs. sat there rusting away a few years later, by 1985, the equipment was sold for junk...
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