Bolex P1 maintenance?

[megalith6]

Hi,

Have a Bolex P1 which is running great How do I keep it running great please?

Thanks,

Ric

[BMasson]

Hello Ric, If it is running fine, you shouldn't have to do anything except count your blessings. I am a big fan of the Bolex reg-8 cameras but I have not used the P1 model. Grease is the main culprit, over time it dries out and acts more like an adhesive than a lubricant. If your camera ever starts to falter, you could send it to Dieter Schaefer of PROCAM. 928-708-9901. He will clean and lube a P1 for about $125.00 and comes highly recomended. I wish you well with your P1. Brad M.

[mr_x]

Hello Ric, If it is running fine, you shouldn't have to do anything except count your blessings. I am a big fan of the Bolex reg-8 cameras but I have not used the P1 model. Grease is the main culprit, over time it dries out and acts more like an adhesive than a lubricant. If your camera ever starts to falter, you could send it to Dieter Schaefer of PROCAM. 928-708-9901. He will clean and lube a P1 for about $125.00 and comes highly recomended. I wish you well with your P1. Brad M.

Thanks Brad,

I started out with Bolex P1,2 & 3, with the idea of shooting longer films, by carrying a film in each camera. The 2 and the 3 both developed problems but the 1 was consistently reliable. I spent a lot of time carefully winding and releasing it to ease the spring up after probably decades of lying inert, and put quite a bit of WD40 into the mechanism which seemed to work - probably dissolved some of that old grease? But WD40 is a thinner and evaporates, it is a short term fix - so I took a chance and very carefully directed a couple of drops of extra fine 'sewing machine oil' into the works. I swear I can hear the difference that has made, it just seems to run smooth now, so am really looking forward to taking the P1 out into the open again shortly.

But the acid test for me will equally be to split the Regular 8 footage, I have had nothing but grief sending processed R8 footage out to be split, I have to do it myself, and have built a DIY splitter in order to do this. Trial splits on surplus film look good but I have yet to split a whole reel and put it through a projector - that will be the biggy.

If it all works out I will be looking for an H8 some day, but it all hinges on the splitting.

Bests,

Ric (London)