16mm reel

Post by **Actor** » Tue Feb 01, 2005 2:45 am

How many feet (meters) or 16mm film will fit on a 9 inch (23 cm) reel?

Post by **FILM-THURSO** » Tue Feb 01, 2005 3:11 am

Kinda depends on the size of it's core actually. Although reels for any film format tend to come in a small number of set sizes in overall diametre the quantity of film on board can be altered by the core size. On average I thinks it's between 25 - 30 minutes worth at 24fps. I just passed a reel of about 9 inches back to it's owner after doing a transfer but I didn't look to see how many feet it was. Super 8 and 35mm movies are my mainstay.

Post by **Actor** » Tue Feb 01, 2005 4:27 am

The core is 2.75". I have 700 feet and just happen to have the 9 inch reel. I'm ordering some splicing tape to put it all on one reel. Do I need to order a larger reel or will it fit on this one?

Post by **FourFourForty** » Tue Feb 01, 2005 9:24 pm

Without giving this a great deal of thought, do a little math. The formula for determining the area of a circle is pi(r squared). Calculate the size of the spool in a reel that holds 15m or 50'. Subtract it from the area of the entire spool (reel), which will give you the area of the reel that actually holds film. Then, do the same for the larger reel. Divide the area of the larger reel by the area of the smaller reel. The resulting number will be 50' or 15m x the result of the division of the larger reel area by the smaller reel area.

I just awoke, so this may not make a lot of sense. It should work, though, or be close, at least.

Post by **Actor** » Wed Feb 02, 2005 2:02 am

FourFourForty wrote:Without giving this a great deal of thought, do a little math. The formula for determining the area of a circle is pi(r squared). Calculate the size of the spool in a reel that holds 15m or 50'. Subtract it from the area of the entire spool (reel), which will give you the area of the reel that actually holds film. Then, do the same for the larger reel. Divide the area of the larger reel by the area of the smaller reel. The resulting number will be 50' or 15m x the result of the division of the larger reel area by the smaller reel area.

I just awoke, so this may not make a lot of sense. It should work, though, or be close, at least.

I thought of doing the math but I did not have the 100' spools handy last night, so I had no data on them. I thought someone might already know the answer.

After measuring the 100' spools and doing the math I get 666'. :twisted:

I guess 600' would be the max the reel would safely handle so I need another.

Post by **FourFourForty** » Wed Feb 02, 2005 5:12 pm

Ooops! Sorry I said 15m or 50'. I was thinking of Super 8. As I posted, I hadn't been awake that long. My bad.

Post by **Herb Montes** » Wed Feb 02, 2005 6:59 pm

I checked a 9" reel I have and it looks like the most it will hold is 600'. The center core is over 2" diameter.