24" Film-Tech Reel Fitment Problem

[Ryan Gallagher]

I thought I'd ask the hive mind too, Brad is aware (and our spindle design was a complete surprise to him). But the Film-Tech plastic 24" 35mm reels struggle with our reel arms and spindle locks. Just a mm or two too wide.

IMG_5847.jpgIMG_5848.jpg

I'm headed in today to try to see if the format adapter shaft can be shifted at all in it's housing, but it doesn't look promising.

I "believe" our arms are Simplex/Ballantyne style 35/70mm, but perhaps someone else can ID them better based on the photo of the 35mm spindle.

http://www.film-tech.com/warehouse/manuals/SMXARM.pdf

http://www.film-tech.com/warehouse/manuals/BALARMS.pdf

If adjustments are not possible. What would ya'll try/do? Unfortunately we only have enough 6K house reels to serve as handling reels, not enough for a full run. And the whole goal was to use the friendlier 8" cores on the FT reels anyway. Our in-house tech day is Monday, festival tech and screening is the 26th.

I've ordered a last ditch option, 4 5/16th "drill depth stop clamps" to place over the flipper instead of flipping it.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CF9QDM66

Brad did offer to loan us enough goldberg 24" reels to make it happen, but would arrive mid-week. Should we pull the trigger on that just in case?

With our 70mm spindles on we often tape the flipper to the reel, because the flipper's detent is often not strong enough to keep a reel from walking off on it's own. But it would feel very iffy to tape this one that is not even closed 45deg, with such a heavy reel in play.

[Ryan Gallagher]

If anyone else encounters this problem with these quirky reel arms and the slightly wider than goldberg FT plastic reels...

This was our seat of our pants solution using those drill bit depth stop locks. Worked great. Would not want to fight with them on 20min reels, but hour long reels is no problem.

I would advise maybe try the aluminum versions of these. These steel ones required quite a bit of torque to get the clamping action engaged. But definitely avoid the varieties that are simply a ring with a set screw... as depending on hardness, you might chew up your spindles.

Lock.jpg

[Jesse Crooks]

5/16" clamping collars are a standard item in my kit for issues such as this. You want the clamping style pictured here rather than the set screw style in which the screw can mar the shaft. They are useful in circumstances such as:

• Broken reel clips on rewinds or projectors
• Moviola-style multi-gang rewind shafts when you don't have a spring clip
• Reels with excessive wobble