The recent topic of bandsaw prints got me to thinking about something. Could running prints with an excessive number of splices cause damage to a projector over time? Or at the very least cause something to get out of whack on the machine?

Great question Timothy, I would say Bill is your man for that.

It certainly won't be any doing any of them any good, that's for sure! The pressure plate will be in and out and bouncing around at the same rate as your shutter claw!
The sprockets and film path will become contaminated far quicker and easier and even a rear sprung pressure plate would struggle to maintain focus with the amount of splices spoken about recently on Bandsaw prints that have somehow attempted to be salvaged.

On a magnetic projector, it would also have to deal with the added thickness of the splice tape running constantly across the sound heads etc.

Any slight splice imperfections and jitter will ensue and almost certainly thereafter loops will be lost momentarily.

It certainly tests the mechanism of any machine to the full I reckon.

Our machines are all pensioners now. Give em an easy ride eh lads!

Have to agre on that Andrew, Same as running a car over smooth tarmac then running it over dozens of speed ramps, the suspensions jumping all over the place,
With Film is the splices are done as they should be and all clean and smooth then a few wont do any harm, but some of the stuff i have seen is unreal. All those little spring hung rollers and the tiny springs of a pressure plate will certainly be under some stress.

Great analogy there regarding the car and the dreaded speed bump, Tom!!

I have to go over hundreds every week living where i do and they are a complete pain in the arse..all because of a few reckless knobheads spoiling things for the vast majority of sane responsible and sensible drivers at large. Grrrrr

Never needed in the 80's when we passed our tests, that's all I can say on that one Tom!

Andrew and Tom, those are very good things to consider. I never considered the excessive bouncing of the pressure plate. I was thinking about the rollers and claw though, not to mention loss of the loops and the possibility of the film jamming up in the gate.

All of which are true Timothy as well as highly likely the more the film contains. Always try to keep your joined films to a minimum of splices, where possible.

Since I only collect 8mm, my splices are pretty much limited to where I've got leader attached . It's another reason why I'm glad to only collect this gauge.

Me too Timothy, Me Too!!

It's nice to be able to go half an hour at least without any, and this seriously reduces the risk of scratching on any print that has none at all.