Have any of you had the magnetic soundhead wear out on any of your projectors ?
If the answer is yes what was the projector and did you manage to get a replacement okay ?
Can you get them now ?

Yes, Woelke 464 used on various machines...and yes again! Lol.

Hello David, the answer is yes to both questions. I have had heads re profiled on Eumigs, I have bought replacement replay
head for my Fumeo in the past three years.

It's worthy of note on this topic, you have certainly had your money's worth if you've ever managed to wear either any mono head, or main stripe side to a stereo or duo play mag head.

It's always a problem first on the tiny 0.4mm wide side of the head far sooner than an issue ever on the main 0.7mm, almost double width main track side.

I've never had a main side head even show the slightest sign of deterioration in my years in this hobby so far.

The Elmo and Erno/ Goko are the ones that consistently last the very longest due to their Sendust alloy, extremely hard wearing construction.

Eumigs by stark contrast are often the softest heads and wear the quickest of any.

I have replaced heads in the ST1200 Andrew, as I have said, it was used a lot, both in recording & showing film.

You're not kidding!!!

I've had 5 in all...never an issue with any on all variants, except for all the usual other complaints and moans I have with these.

But sound reproduction, aside from the transportation mechanism side of things on these...was never one of them.

You really do surprise me there Hugh!!

Yes, they wear out eventually Andrew, incidentally, someone on the 8mm forum said that the Elmo ST1200, didn't have
a hum reducer, well they do, or did, the little yellow fuse like hum bucking coil is situated just underneath the soundheads
and is affixed by a wire to it. Indeed, it is very sensitive to movement. The much vaunted GS1200, loses top note by using
them for rerecording tracks. The Elmo I had, bought in '75, it ran just about every night until it died in '90/91, after a new
amp fitted as well. Not bad in all, but with constant use, they do wear out. I still have two here, but seldom used now.

Never managed to wear any of these fellas out on these Hugh, nor, for that matter, have I ever seen noise cancelling (ground loop ) reducing coils on any of these.

Over to you please here Bill.

Well done here Hugh for spotting these...news to me!!!

I don't foresee the one machine I have with a magnetic sound head wearing out anytime soon as I don't use it NEARLY as often as I would like! Considering the age of the machine (mid 70's), it really hasn't gotten a lot of use. I like the optical sound feature on my 16mm machine, as no contact between parts is occurring (kind of a predecessor to CD/DVD technology).

Probably not then Timothy. Not never. It takes thousands of hours of use on most, and even many hundreds of hours on even some of the worst stereo machines for this type of wear to surface into something of an issue.

Optical sound, of course offers far less complications by and large, but as a totally superseded technology, offers nothing of the refinement nor frequency range of magnetic stereo sound capabilities either.

The Elmo I got in to take a bit of strain off my little S709, which actually lasted longer than the ST1200, it packed in last year.
The Eumig had head replacement in about '74/75, then you just disengaged the soundhead unit and sent it off to Johnsons of Hendon,
it came back in its specially made plastic container to screw it down during transit. My Mother at the time wondered what it was that
was being delivered by a big Securicor man and guard dog in van. It was about ten years ago, I used two companies to re profile the
heads on two Mark S and my S709 8mm projectors, the difference in sound playback was amazing. When I think back, I had occasion to replace the hum coil on the ST1200, as it had given out, it is situated behind the metal plate where the loop reformer is fitted. You must
remember that if you use one machine constantly, it will wear out faster than using a collection of them, like shoes, if you only wear one
pair, they won't last as long as when you alternate with other pairs. Also, I tend to think of heads as constantly being ground down by a
thin strip of emery paper for hours at a time. When you view closely, you can see the "flats" on them that should be rounded. Well, tea break over, back to the grind.

Its a fact of life I'm afraid, even on tape decks, soundheads wear out, on your video recorder, on your record players, the stylus
occasionally needs replacing. On the other forum, someone said he uses his machine a lot, but can make a feature last all week by showing a spool at a time, yeah that's really putting the pressure on, the thing should last forever. When I say heavy use, I mean heavy use, average would be four hours solid per day, when I think back, more if rerecording, Also, if not kept up to spec, they can spoil
your soundtracks. I don't flog film as much now, what with other things to do, but when I was younger, I loved it, and that was before video. Incidentally, there's a certain dealer said "he didn't know I collected Std 8mm!!", even though I've bought them from him,
shows his mind is not on the job.

These replies are most interesting guys.
I have never worn out a head so far. However its probably down
to the little use my machines have had over the decades.
I still prefer Optical soundtracks even though they are lower spec than Mag.

Yes they wear after a bit of use David, and both my Elmo & Eumig machines were bought new, both had head replacements, the other two Eumig machines I had, they had heads re profiled, that is where I learned that when they start to wear, they can score and spoil
stripe sound, of course the two Eumigs have been breeding, there are a bunch of them now, just for std 8mm.

Good Subject, i have to say i have been lucky so far, no worn heads yet.
I was told by by repair chap some years ago that if you use projectors heavily for recording this will wear the heads out much faster than machines used only for playing. I'm not sure why or what the technicalities are.

Its a load of old bollocks Tom. No reason whatsoever, why a Mag head would wear quicker as a recording head, than a playback head!
Mechanical wear is just that, purely down to the sheer amount of film that runs past it. Nothing more, nothing less.

It may Electrically turn it's toes up sooner by result of excess recording duties, but this has nothing to do with wear.

LOL!!! David ,, earlier, regarding the Optical track!!

Actually Andrew, what Tom is alluding to is correct, which I mentioned earlier on, the GS1200, does suffer through a lot of recording,
eventually the signal gets very muffled and poor top, this is in fact due to one of the components getting weaker. It was covered in
an issue of FFTC by Keith Wilton, fortunately it can be remedied by replacement. Full instructions of how to do this were explained.
Head wear is basically the same problem, except it can be seen.

Maybe Hugh, but nothing to do with wear , as said.

Certainly not the mechanical type anyhow, that's for sure!!

There's no maybe Andrew, its a fact, KW was noticing his machine was not as clear in sound as it used to be, it was discovered
that this little component was the cause, it was a case of replacing it, and all was well, I take the point it isn't head wear, but it
had the same effect on sound recordings. It just underlines what I've always said about the GS1200, just a box of trouble with a
big handle on top.

Keith Wilton ... i presume here Hugh??

Not having it mate, sorry... other electrical issues.. maybe, excess mechanical wear via recording... never! Sorry Hugh, I don't and cannot subscribe to the theory.

The two are totally non related in my book.

There is simply no connection between the two.

Not for any head made from any decent durable alloy, that's for sure!!

Andrew while the sound quality from 8mm mag stripe is not and could never qualify as
" Hi-Fi " and while the same applies to the even more frequency response limited
optical sound I am not kidding when I state I prefer the sound of Optical soundtracks.

You are spot on Hugh, I had a GS1200 which I used to rerecord many super 8 prints for 2 dealers in the 1990's and my head DID wear, to the point where I had to replace the head, this is all down to the magnetic stripe wearing out the head, the stripe is an oxide abrasive and with the stripe moving over the head it wears down.

Yes, precisely what I said. It's the Abrasive properties of the stripe that does the wearing to the heads,, not any electrical impulse phenomenon.

Purely a mechanical action as originally stated.

So in other words Dave, had your GS just had been used for the same amount of time as simply a playback machine only....the head would still have demonstrated the very same level of wear.

Well, you're never too old to learn Andrew, and just turned 50, here we go. The article was in issue 62 of FFTC, actually it was
written by Kevin Faulkner, it was the ( flux ) capacitor that deteriorated, it is easily replaced apparently, but it did affect sound recordings. This isn't "head wear", but it had the same effect, poor sound recordings. It isn't made up, 'tis true. Thanks Dave, thought
I might have been in some alternate universe. The wearing of the head has nothing to do with this other problem, but bears similarities
in the end recordings, much as a worn out head would do.