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Henry... Here is being used at Cinema Borealis in 1989. So, it's path was as follows... Mayflower Theater... BL&S... A California reseller... Myself... James Bond... Then apparently to your theater. I also have a picture of 806 being dropped of at my shop in St Charles, IL. There are several more pictures in the F-T Warehouse...
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That Christie lamphouse sure uses a lot of lens cleaner!Comment
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Quite fun to see it with that old Christie lamphouse on it, its very similar to the lamphouses we ran here for almost 30 years (donated in 1988 by Showcase Cinema Worcester / National Amusements along with No. 873 and presumably the pedestal and lamp table No. 806 was using when we had it). I'll look through the warehouse for more, I definitely remember seeing the Borealis pics - those looked like a ton of fun.Originally posted by Mark Gulbrandsen View Post
I don't have any pictures on-hand, but per letters and old work orders I've been archiving, the first movie we ran with our pair when we got then was also outside - but changeover. I'm currently trying to make contact with some of our projectionists who were around for that, as it sounds pretty surreal. Apparently our booth wasn't ready, so they ran an outdoor movie before having the projector pieces lowered into the booth by crane they day before the roof went on.Comment
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Was wrapping some maintenance up on on our 2nd machine tonight, and decided to throw the blue door on for the heck of it - green window that was in there is in pretty rough shape anyways. When I went to do that, I realized that the door the blue window was in is missing some features (no badging on the outside, holes for them have rivets but no emblems, missing holes for the detent, door was missing a latch). At that point decided to just swap the window, so I did. While doing that, I noticed that the door currently on the 2nd has "806" marked on the top inside edge in what looks to be orange crayon. Went to go check our other machine - says "873" in the same spot. Turns out one of our previous projectionists swapped the green window into 806s door in order to use it without having to drill holes in the new (presumably AA-II) door for the detent.
This is where the plot thickens - I've known for a while that our 1st machine has had a Rosco gel over the door (dark blue) for decades... and I got curious as to what color it actually was. Removed the window to take the gel off, and to my surprise... its also light blue. So we have 2 of these light blue doors, one presumably original to 806 and the other to 873. Green door belongs to the mystery AA-II head (was able to verify after sifting through some records that the glass was indeed swapped around). Also - 806's door's Todd-AO badge is missing the AO piece in the middle - not sure if that happened under our care of before.
Anyhow... both machines are now set up with identical light blue windows - did some checks to make sure it wasn't too bright (had been told the gel was added for that reason), but all seems well. Curious if anyone has seen another of these light blue ones - we've now gotten multiple unrelated comments about the oddity that 806's was, and now we have a pair of them. I'm quite happy with the look, and it doesn't seem too be blindingly bright. Pics attached.
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Resize-Composite.jpgLast edited by Henry Atkinson; 03-21-2024, 12:15 AM.Comment
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Total shot in the dark here... any chance you know what the serial number for the head in the last 2 pictures in this message is? Went back and looked at it more closely, its missing its serial plate, and seems to have a reinforcement plate inside the head over the cooling plate in the main casting. Any idea what machine that was, and if it went to James Bond after you - that's where we got our mystery head.Originally posted by Mark Gulbrandsen View PostComment
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If that one isn't 806, then only 007 might know. He did get the DP-70's from the Bismark Theater in.Chicago. I was in that booth once, but I do not remember the door glass color. I have a picture of him standing next to a DP-70 with a Ventarc on the back. I'll dig it up and message it to you. Might be a few hours though.Comment
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No rush! Here's the pictures of how our mystery head looks - the one in the pic can't be 806, the lips match a AA-II and the paint is way too good.Originally posted by Mark Gulbrandsen View PostComment
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No, that's not 806, unless 007 dropped it accidentally. Yes, have seen those areas of the projector broken before. That repair is fine, as there is only the lever that drops into the slot. Probably the thinnest area of cast iron in the whole projector. When we were re-doing DP-70's at CLACO, the boss bought up everything Steve Krams had down in Miami. So we had extra complete main castings and lots of parts. There were more projectors sitting across from these. All in all I think we rebuilt almost to 50 projectors. All had BACP reverse scanners and internal DTS reader mounts in place of the mag penthouse, and 35mm only LaVezzi VKF sprockets. Some also had Baldor direct drive vari-speed motors.
The other image is one end of the 12 plex that was all DP-70. No blue windows on any of the DP-70 there, or others I ever serviced, except when I owned 806. In that booth were a DP-70 from the Seattle Cinerama Theater, and both DP-70 from the Stag Theater at Skywalker Sound.Comment
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Its definitely not 806 - 806 is intact and in storage under our booth. This head is the mystery AA-II head we got from James Bond in 2014. I have a hunch that it was one of the CLACO refurbs - the paint is in incredibly good shape, and it came to us with one of the blanking plates that you had been mounting DTS readers to where the mag head was from the factory. No optical head or motor assembly though. 1642 is listed on in70 as being a head that James Bond had, so this may be it? The serial number is in the right range for the features on the casting.Originally posted by Mark Gulbrandsen View Post
I've seen that Seattle picture before (in the intermittent disassembly thread from memory) - quite the sight. Surprised that the magazines stayed on given how easy they are to remove.Comment
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It may be a head from Casper, WY... There were at least 12 there between two locations and quite a few of that chains DP-70's were sold off... but apparently they still have several left. The 12 screen all DP-70 was in Cheyenne, as was one DP-70 at the Lincoln Theater down town. We wouldn't have installed a projector with a broken casting, so it may have been dropped during it's move. The rest of that chain's theaters had 35mm Simplex's. There were also two DP-70's in St George, UT, and eight in Lehigh, Utah. Megaplex took over those Utah sites and no idea what happened to those, although I removed the two in St George to make room for new 4k NEC's for the original owner. Mega hated the DP-70, because one of their booth monkies forced a gate open while a machine was running. THAT was an expensive repair that I went and did. I wish I had taken pics of the shutter and cooling plate. Probably cost around 4k dollars. One thing that comes to mind was when the Seattle Cinerama DP-70's were being removed the movers dropped one of them down a stair way. But those had the usual darkvgreen door. SN was in the 1200's too... but they had mag penthouses in them, not DTS plates.Comment
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By the way... You can get an identical outside hammertone paint at Home Depot. But the white interior on some of the Claco rebuilds is white powder coat. So, if that paint is hard to scratch, then its for sure a Claco rebuild. When I get home I'll look on tje NAS for those pics. For sure there were at least 8 rebuilds that had white powder coated interiors.Comment
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It may be a Claco machine then. Identifying characteristics are:Originally posted by Mark Gulbrandsen View Post
-Fresh white paint inside (I haven't tried scratching it, but it still looks perfect after at least a decade of use with us)
-Presumably new hammertone paint outside (painted over rivets, missing serial plate, so either it never had one, or it was lost while painting)
-AA-II casting (no lips by fire rollers)
-Re-silvered cooling plate (there are wear marks under the silver coating)
-Reinforcement plate over the shutter/cooling plate cavity (crack was also epoxied under the plate)
-Door is missing emblems, has rivets (painted over), green window, AA-II blanked hole near the hinges. Missing brass detent, no holes to add one.
Closest hit I have for a serial number is 1642 being listed as 007 by in70mm... but no pics, info, or dates on that one, so who knows. I'm sure he had a fair few AA-II heads over the years.Last edited by Henry Atkinson; 03-29-2024, 11:44 AM.Comment
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That's for sure out of the Westates Thanksgiving Point 8 screen in Lehigh, Utah. Megaplex probably stored them somewhere, and 007 likely got it from them. There were other DP70 with internal DTS readers in Wyoming, but not with a powder coated interior. Also, the internal DTS reader mounts in Lehigh used the spring loaded film tensioner off the 35/70 mag reader. They also have BACP readers I re-machined the optical sh castings to fit, and they had re-silvered cooling plates.Comment
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Henry...Here are some pictures of the Westate's Machines...Comment
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