Well, we all love to talk film and show off our pictures and discuss the various versions,
For a little change i thought I'd show off my "Scilly" collection. I only call it this because in my younger days I kept sending off for price and availability of Elmo spares for our 1200HD's. Once I got hold of the parts book with all the part numbers,(ideal for me being a motor trade partsman all my life), I just sent off the part numbers of what I wanted. I didn't actually need them I just thought that one day they would be handy. The one item I did buy but wish I bought many more was the 24fps roller drive. Although I did proudly have new ones re-manufactured to 100% perfection, in fact the ones I had made all sold, it was a £600 gamble. Thanks to many of our collector friends I took pre orders and they all sold, (you will see the two black ones here that I kept for my own use as well as new rubbers to replace any worn ones on both 24 & 18fps). The metal used was much stronger but lighter & the rubber used was a top quality long life material. The pitch where the belts fit are exact size to the original. Nothing was simply rounded off, I wanted them to be as per the original. I used the genuine Elmo one I had purchased as the pattern to copy.
Keith Wilton reviewed it in one of the FFTC mags, it was, for me, a very proud few weeks. All the spares I have are genuine Elmo and may, (just maybe), one day will come in handy.
BTW, picture 5 is the odds and ends stuff from old machines. Everything else is new

I bet if you throw something, a week later you probably need it. I am giving away a lot of defective projectors myself. Keeping a couple of Eumigs, a Sankyo 800, a Chinon and my Elmos. Space is now more and more valuable.

Exactly Vidar, Tom has the right idea though, labelled and handy. There are no back up stores now to ring up for bits, although
I have a few scrap machines, if anyone was looking for a part, or there is Edwin, who thankfully can "magic" these things out
of thin air with his 3D printer.

Kinda of scary isn't it ?
When you see all the " bitties" on your machines that can wear out and put them out of action.
I remember you getting those made Tom.
I wish I bought some from you.

Tom's clearly got a lifetimes worth of spares there for his ST's.

It is really important nowadays to have some new spares for all our essential wear items.

STK I.C. chipsets are also an important item to have in our locker now, for all those machines that use them. Many are obsolete now without finding old brand new stock somewhere.

I don't have AS many general spare parts for all of mine, but I've tried to cover these eventualities as well as I can, hopefully.

I have plenty of Motors, Cams and Mag Heads to hopefully see me right.
One or two essential guides etc also for my T610's.
I will rely on Wittners for all else. Hopefully they will still provide us all with a good degree of spare part inventory for a good number of years to come yet, with any luck.

At present, they have almost all spares ever needed for the Beaulieu projectors, albeit at a price!

Tom certainly did a lot of Elmo owners a service when he had those shutters with the rubbers made, it too was covered in FFTC.
With Tom and Andrew on here, owners of certain projectors can sleep easy.

Looking through the old FFTC magazines, it's a real credit to Tom, the advice that was given out by him in that era from his "Techy" scripts. Well done Tom!

Thanks Andy/Hugh, I do hope many people enjoyed those bits, (with the help of the trusty service manual and my own experiences),
I have to say that title, Techy Bit, was actually a Derann creation, I never like that title but couldn't really come up with a good alternative.

How about "Tom's Technical Talk" ? Ha ha . or Take.

Or " TOM's projector MOTs " see what I did there. Lol.

cooooool, I never thought of that one

Its not the making of the part that is the problem most of the time, but the quotes you get from companies who have a minimum order, which is multiples more than you want.
And then there is selling them on to forum to members. Well done Tom for having the balls to get something done, so many talk the talk but can't walk the walk. I have the experience with making the reflector for the GS 1200 xenon, and knocking on a few doors and laughing at some the prices they quoted. A 30 year career in engineering gives me
a better Idea than most at long it would take to make, and the difficulty in getting the accuracy needed. Most things I have seen on a projector can be made.

As you say Paul, we can manufacture many for ourselves or get them made by a small Engineering outfit, but at the prices to manufacture for many of the parts needed or even to buy from stock parts, you simply cannot manufacture anything for anyone en masse here.

It simply isn't cost effective as I found out when delving into the prospect of manufacturing some uprated Beaulieu spindle hubs for a few enquiries I received when I asked around.

A Spondon LPU went for £196 this past week on e bay here in the UK.
I doubt I could make one for less. Though to be fair, a brand new one would be guaranteed to work, unlike the one that sold there recently!

The motor / gearbox alone cost around £45 to buy from stock.

The 3D printing method is certainly the most cost effective method for all small detailed parts that can be made from plastic, but of course, this is no solution for many of the parts we seek.

The chip for the spondon unit is available and not that expensive, and as you say so are the motors, but they seem pretty robust to be honest. If you have the mag heads and
power chips if still around, everything else on projectors in the mechanical sense can be sourced or made in small numbers, and improved in some case's. Its one reason why
I have the GS, aside from anything else the mag heads would be impossible to make without highly specialised equipment and a facility to test them. I don't have any spare
heads for the beaulieu sadly, and suspect they are difficult to obtain now, likewise the Fumeo.

The Beaulieu uses the same heads on the Stereo models as the Bauer Studio class models, so no shortage of those for the time being Paul.

They still have one or two brand new ones at Wittners for these, but they no longer advertise them now due to very limited numbers.

As for Fumeo, Hugh had a solution here for you didn't he Paul?

I've sourced a spare motor now for the Spondon, but the original is fine for now.
I suspect the nylon gears in the gearbox will fail well before the actual motor windings do, hence the spare.
As you rightly say Paul, the motor on these is extremely durable being a quality Philips manufactured one.

I use mine for all of my long play reel cleaning duties, so I really don't expect my original motor to last forever but while ever a spare can be found, this poses no issue here thankfully.

There are so many GS 1200s out there plus Erno and Goko Stereo editors, not to mention the ST1200 HD which uses the same head, I would imagine the GS could last for another 100 years in the right hands.

No luck as yet with Fumeo head spare Andrew, Hugh gave me a good lead on this, so I have fingers crossed. I am liking the beaulieu more so these days, but would like to
use the fumeo more but the sound is no where near as good. I'll get it to bill for good look at on that side. I have just purchased a brand new SS1200 from Francisco so I'm
interested to see how this performs against the other machines when it was new. I have one for spares, but again the heads would be as rare as hens teeth for this. Are the
heads expensive for the beaulieu Andrew, I will get a set if they are not crazy money.

They put the price up almost every week Paul as the inventory becomes less and less.
Last enquiry, they were something like £270 each!

It's far cheaper to buy a decent Bauer Studio class machine that has not been hammered to death. This way you get two spare heads for less than the price of one new one from Beaulieu .de, unless it's a mono Beaulieu model.

Remove the heads and simply sell the rest of it for spare parts if you have no desire to ever own one of these machines.

Hi Tom, I need your help, I need a spare part for my Elmo GS 800. this film path
I think is this one on the picture. Can you confim me???
thanks for helping.

Hi Tom, do you have one for sale???
thanks so much for looking.

Alessandro,
Apologies to you as i had not looked at this post and saw your request.
PM Sent

Tom

Hi Tom, no problems, I hope you have it.