reels

[Jaybird]

I just checked out some reels from my parents audio recorder and they seem to work with a standard 8 movie projector. Anybody else ever use 1/4 inch scotch brand reel to reel audio reels for movies instead. do they work? they are all over ebay for pennies and seem to be a cheaper alternative. months ago I threw away a box of 20, 6-7 inch blank reels not realizing if they might fit my standard 8 nobody records with the reel to reel recorders anymore.

JK

[tim]

Your are right: 1/4" tape reels and R8 film reels are very similar. One difference is that the slots in the centre for threading are often not straight across, but angled which makes film threading difficult.

If you have the right equipment (a lathe or pillar drill) is is quite simple to enlarge the centre hole for S8.

BTW, a lot of pople do still use reel-to-reel. I do for storing sound tracks: tape is easy to edit, and a good machine gives much better sound than a cassette.

[Guest]

Nothing wrong with reel to reel tape, as you say really easy to edit and splice segments together and the sound quality you can achieve is phenomenal. All I need is a good battery operated reel to reel recorded to capture live sounds for filming!

Yeah you can use tape reels for film fairly easily. The diameter of the hole in the centre is correct for 8mm projectors, not for super 8 but if you have a dual gague setup you can always put super 8 on a standard 8mm or audio reel. When I started filming I didn't have any film reels so my first three films were edited onto tape reels.

[studiocarter]

I have several, a couple with the "GREEN EYE" they work great. They were taken to a old tube radio repair shop that changed capacitors to clean up the sound.

Radio Shack sells new reel to reel tapes.

Perhaps the tape could be slit and glued onto movie film?

[tim]

Modern tape is polyester based and cannot be glued to film by solvent welding. The tape that is split for sound stripe is acetate based, and is no longer made. (If anyone wants some, I do have some left.)

There is usually plenty of reel-to-reel tape on ebay, for example:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 1394466921

[David M. Leugers]

I have long thought about using either 1/4 inch audio tape or cassette tape applied to film and slit. I have heard of a gentleman in Britain I believe who has used superglue to attach stripe to film. Does anyone have information on this? I wonder if a machine could be made to apply the thin polyester audio tape to film and slit the excess from the edge of the film in one operation. Using super glue might be the trick. I would love to have sound striped films in the future both for S8-mm and 16mm. Has anyone used the 200ft sound striped rolls of Kodachrome from Germany to film with? I wonder how they are producing this filmstock?

[studiocarter]

How do you tell the tapes apart, Poly and Acetate?
Some of MY old tapes may be Acetate??? Perhaps I could find them in a Thrift Store.

[S8 Booster]

I have long thought about using either 1/4 inch audio tape or cassette tape applied to film and slit. I have heard of a gentleman in Britain I believe who has used superglue to attach stripe to film. Does anyone have information on this? I wonder if a machine could be made to apply the thin polyester audio tape to film and slit the excess from the edge of the film in one operation. Using super glue might be the trick. I would love to have sound striped films in the future both for S8-mm and 16mm. Has anyone used the 200ft sound striped rolls of Kodachrome from Germany to film with? I wonder how they are producing this filmstock?

The old Agfa Moviechrome 40 was as far as I know ployester based and it was impossible to post stripe it even with the acetate Agfa Soundstripes.

However, I have personally sent my Agfa films to a company in Norway that fixed this. According to what I have heard this company had a very special Weberling sound striping machine that grinded the surfaces where the soundstipes were added before the pocess started.

I believe that the stripes might have been Agfas but the glue may have been different form the standard. Do not know but the stripes certainly came on so it is possible one way or another.

I will try to contact the company and ask them about even if they do not have the machinery anymore.

There is also some othe rsound stripes around named ORWO. They are different but I do not know their base. Said not to have the sound quality of the Agfa and they require a different glue.

Additionally Fuji in Japan sound stripes the Fuji Single8 Polyester film when the film is processed (optional) so the tricks are out there some way.


R

[tim]

To test tape, put a SMALL drop of film cement on the shiny side at the end. Wipe it with your finger: if the tape is sticky under the cement, it is acetate; if the cement just wipes off, it is polyester. In addtion, acetate tape looks different on the reel. It tends to curl and the outer turns on a reel are not perfect circles.

[Pedro]

Striping and tapes:
I am striping film by myself since mid 1980ies, using a Weberling DS-240 machine.
Agfa S8 film, as far as I know, always had been Acetate like Kodachrome, I striped a lot of it by myself in the 1980ies and beginning 1990ies.
All striping tapes are acetate, too, so the discontinued Agfa F5 tape and the STILL PRODUCED Orwo tape.
The only thing that is not Acetat is Fuji stock (single 8)

With striping,there may occure some problems and facts, each user should know:

1. It is NOT POSSIBLE to stripe contact copies at home, even beeing acetate! The reason is, that the stripe cannot be glued to the emulsion side of the film. To stripe contact copies, the lab has first to grind a chanel into the emulsion side, that will take the stripe afterwards. This cannot be performed with home striping machines.

2. The striping tape must meet the film surface at it´s (shiny) base side, NOT at it´s magnetic side! It´s easy: shiny stripe side to shiny film side.

3. The film must be perfectly clean (benzin cleaned) and NOT lubed.

4. Orwo tapes are the only still produced tapes for striping. No way to criticize the quality. They are slightly thicker than Agfa and show more abrasion. The magnetic layer is more sensible than Agfa and DOES NOT WITHSTAND ACETONE BASED CEMENT!!! You MUST buy adequade cement when you buy the strip. Home made mixtures from acetone and dioxan will partly destroy the magnetic layer and will cause major drop outs in audio. The striping process should be as quick as possible to allow the tape to take as much cement as possible. Hand-cranked or projector-driven stripers won´t work with Orwo tapes. After striping, the film should run several times thru an older projector with pressed sound heads, and afterwards well lubed! This is important to get rid of the first abrasions, that may affect your precious sound heads!

5. Polyester based film (Fuji or some quality copies) CAN be striped, but not with home machines. Special labs employ a special striping process: A magnetic tape is glued onto the film (polyester or acetate or contact copy or mixed) using hot glue. The hot glue surface is upon the magnetic layer, not on the base. It´s glue, no cement. After cooling, the base tape is taken off, and only the magnetic layer remains on the film.

6. For my technical understanding, it is IMPOSSIBLE at all, simply NOT FEASIBLE, to split polyester tape and glue it to S8 film of any kind. You would need to produce exact 0,4 and 0,8 mm tapes and glue them without spots in to frames and without producing varying thickness, keeping it elastic and durable. But back in the 1970ies, as a schoolboy, I tried it as well.

Pedro

[Angus]

I have several, a couple with the "GREEN EYE" they work great. They were taken to a old tube radio repair shop that changed capacitors to clean up the sound.

As a kid in the 80's I used to collect old reel to reel tape recorders...I've still got a box of valves (tubes) somewhere which I collected to replace old ones. Many of the valves are still in production, including the green "magic eyes".

As for 1/4 inch tape (as used in r-r)...certainly Maxell and Radio Shack are still producing it and I'd suspect there are others too. I think Agfa still do the backed professional stuff.