Being relatively new to this (a couple of years soon), I was wondering how often you perform maintenance to your projector and what you do. I have given some oil to the most obvious moving parts, but avoided the parts being in contact with the film. I haven't done that often, just once a year or so.

I have finally got a dust blower. Up until recently I just blowed with my mouth. I also bought a pressurized air can, but I guess dust blower does the job most of the time.

And then to the part I was wondering most about: For my Super 8 Eumig S810 with magnetic sound I just received cleaning fluid for cassette players. I guess that should work fine? In the old days it was also possible to get demagnetizing "cassettes" for the cassette player that had a battery and a electro magnet to demagnetize the reader.

But what do I do with the audio head for my Elmo 16-CL which is optical? Do you ever perform some kind of cleaning? And how?

Blowing with your mouth is a no, no ... Just read about Nintendo game carts. They work fine when you blow in them, but you also make it prone to rust later on. You are not only blowing air, there's also liquid when you blow (even if you think there's not) :-)

Your Elmo CL probably uses a tiny lens with a slot in it to focus the exciter light beam behind it onto an electronic photocell. If it is this type of an arrangement, just gently dust away any debris from in and around the lens using an air blower brush, not compressed air.

Certainly the lens itself, should never be removed as focussing the tiny beam can be somewhat tricky to completely master. It can be done, but should really never need to be done if the PJ is used correctly.

As for lubrication interventions and lubricants required on Super 8mm machines, they are all different I'm afraid. You really need to read both the instruction manual and the service manual for any given machine, to know exactly what to use and how often.

On Super 8mm projectors, oil is something seldom ever required or recommended to lubricate any of the parts and can in some cases, very much do more harm than good.

The magnetic heads can and should all be cleaned using a 100% or very near to 100% pure alcohol solution. I use Isoclean which is readily available and does a superb job when applied using a Cotton Bud (Q -Tip).
Any Isopropyl solution is a great solution for this Job though.
Pay close attention to the nylon pressure pads also as these will have a build up of magnetic stripe deposits in the same manner that the heads themselves do.

Also as a general rule of thumb, don't be tempted to go around lubricating the film path with either silicone or furniture polish in situ.
As and when this transfers onto the capstan roller in and around the sound head, it will, on all but a few machines, cause excessive slippage of the roller resulting in warbling sound (wow or flutter). Any polishing of guides should be carried out best with the part removed and then the surface can be buffed to a high standard to obtain a glass like surface with no visible polish, silicone or wax, remaining in the guide

There used to be a company advertising in Movie Maker named Seccombe, they had a strip of material that was perforated for Super 8, one side was smooth, the other rough, you fed it into the projector, one side cleaned the film path of dirt and debris, the smooth side was for cleaning the head. I still have mine.

Lazy mans tool Robert! Ha ha

Just like cleaning a car thoroughly, you can't beat doing it by hand. Beats any car wash machine!

Many good tips here. I should have asked this a long time ago. :-) Thank you!

All machines will be different, on the Bell & Howell, you need to keep the sound drum clean, and don't touch the exiter lamp with your fingers. You could use a soft camel hair brush to remove any dust. I used a vacuum cleaner nozzle on mine recently to clean the film path. It's also worth checking where the pull down claws are as bits of fluff can accumulate there over time and can result in an unsteady picture.

Agree with everything said, the other night, after shaking the sawdust from my manly frame, I tried to watch a film on 16mm. now
I always brush everything down, lets be clean, but in this instance I was showered in bits, the pressure plate hung by the lower screw,
the other bits everywhere, eventually located by a very powerful magnet, except for the screw, non magnetic, eventually sorted out
LESSON always check that the screws to gate are tight, it might be worse if it happens in a screening away from home, so do check on
screws to gate, happy shows.

When I said lower bits, it was actually the upper screw had come loose, spring and gate clip, you need three hands to
sort it out.

Woops. Never thought about checking for loose screws. Thanks!