Simplex Studio Gate Help

[Sara Meyers]

Hello All,

I am having issues with inconsistent mechanical sounds (sometimes extremely loud) from un-spliced film passing over the intermittent/ unsteadiness of image while running one of my Simplex PR1014 35mm projectors. I believe the issue is a missing original gate (I have the original gate for the sister projector- which hasn't had any problems) Please chime in if you have any advice on how to deal with this, or know of anyone who may have the matching gate to the one pictured below- It is a studio style gate (straight rails) and I haven't been able to find one that is an exact match... other studio gates that I have tried all present issues. Thank you!!

-Sara

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

That's actually not the studio gate. That's the foreword / reverse gate for a review projector. And while studios did use them on review projectors, they were rarely used for anything else, and in fact rarely even used on the review projectors. And having done location dailies on a lot of movies I can say that not once did they request to back that up or to run the film in reverse. I much prefer the standard straight gate, there are two versions, but both work well, and then the curved gate.... The thing that can happen... and that's if your projector even has one, is the gate stopper screw comes lose and then the gate will eventually either close too far in, or just the opposite, the screw works lose and the gate does not close far enough. I am also seeing, I think, in your second and third photos what looks like wear in the curved part of the sprocket pressure shoe where it closes over the intermittent sprocket. If that IS what I think I am seeing then check your intermittent sprockets for damaged teeth, especially on the sides. I doubt that you will be able to find those long curved pads though unless John Eickoff has some in his NOS parts stock. He may also have a pair of standard curved or straight gates and traps available. Anyway, these days one can't be too picky on the parts since none have been made for going on ten years now..

[John Eickhof]

im with mark here, thats a very late version of the rock-n-roll (fwd-rev) trap door, check tension on film and adj screw mark refers to they are notorious for excessive tension, i would suggest the standard G-2409 two shoe trap, or if running low lamp wattage the three shoe G-2411 trap. ( the three shoe can be noisy at splices) by far the two shoe will provide nice steady image quietly. I have both in stock, send me a pm, thanks