I was reading the recent topic over on film-Tech just a moment ago surrounding the need for some "new blood" regarding projector repairs now that it appears, for the time being at least, we have one less in the marketplace due to the absent and excellent Bill Parsons because of his recent operation etc.

I found Simon's comment in particular somewhat amusing in the fact that he said he would willingly pay to attend a training seminar run by Bill in a hotel somewhere for example.

David Hardy gave his arthritis as the reason why he felt he wouldn't be up to more challenging and intricate tasks.

The thing is with all of this type of work, as to be fair Steve Klare quite correctly points out, there are no guarantees anymore without first the owners of such items taking some responsibility themselves if it is kit they value.

If it is kit you value then the minimum requirements an engineer of even tremendous competency would require now in this era, is the spare parts to be able to repair whatever is wrong.
Most are not "off the shelf" items anymore and this can equally apply to many electronic components.

Any engineer needs to be given the parts in advance to repair the item, this may mean any owner needs always to have at least one other fully working spare machine or have already purchased some brand new official spare parts from the good old days of when items like these were readily available.

Steve also brushed on the point that without the documentation to also back up any attempt to repair, the job becomes even harder.
Schematic drawings, known test points, service manuals, exploded view drawings, parts inventory etc etc are all very necessary to really allow anyone competent to stand any chance.

For those that do still repair our machines, almost all now do so with provisions.
When I spoke to Kevin Brown some time ago, he told me that he can never guarantee getting a stereo machine fully functional on both channels anymore, it really did depend on things like head wear etc.

Bill I know, hated working on certain machines, my own included. He found it to be way too stressful to be able to make any assurances on such items given their complexity and prohibitive expensive spare parts.
He much preferred to work on an Elmo GS 1200 or ST 1200 as these were the kind of machines by his own admission that he had a huge amount of spare parts for at his disposal and the machines he had the greatest experience and knowledge of working with.

Another repair engineer John White, prefers Eumigs as his specialty and he has plenty of spares for those machines. For others he will do his best for anyone no doubt, but again how can he guarantee anything?

So you see it is for these reasons why Simons suggestion for a training seminar for such work did bring about an ironic smile to myself because given the number of machines at large still and given the variety among them, not to mention the sheer numbers of potential faults and spare part shortages to be found for many of them, its no wonder why even someone with the expertise of Kevin Brown has now chosen not to repair 8mm machines any longer.

Quite often there simply isn't the support for the machine to hand nor the desire by the customer very often, to spend the money that it would take to carry out repairs to a professional standard or even the spares to hand to allow it to possibly happen.

Sadly there is no seminar or tutorial that could magic all of these factors into place.

It is now the time, more than ever previously, to take responsibility yourself as owners of such machines that are highly valued, to learn all that you can about your own individual machine (they are all different in their behaviour just like cars) and to try to seek all the information and Spare part inventory you may ever likely need if you intend to be using these machines in even 10 years time.

Don´t forget our friend Edwin. He´s doing his best to keep our beloved projectors alive. And he´s also younger than most of us. https://www.van-eck.net/

He is indeed Mats.

The reason I didn't include the fabulous services of Edwin and his team into this conversation was simply because the topic posted over on film-Tech appeared to be purely regarding the UK shortages now of professional repair engineers / technicians.

Edwin does of course offer most repair services for our machines for those willing to the risk the transportation of our goods over to Holland for those that don't already live there.

I am fortunate to be still working as a proper projectionist,getting paid to do what I enjoy as a hobby as well.Now for my part I try to do the best I can at home with my equipment and spares to keep my machines running.But there is only so much I can do and Bill will be sadly missed, the vast knowledge needed to keep some machines running is beyond a lot of people who are in this as a hobby.
I have had to get to grips with this new digital equipment,which I know people say "oh you only press a few buttons" well I can assure you there was a steep learning curve and its still going up.As can be seen I still show 35mm and the relief projectionist said to me (he only does digi) I would not have clue where to start with the Cinemeccanica,so my thought is once the knowledge is gone it could well be gone for good.
One would like to think that there may be a younger generation of engineers out there who have3 an interest in reel film and its equipment,but I doubt it.If it aint on the phone or Ipad forget it seems to be the way.
I like to think I can sort out my 16mm problems myself,I don't mind taking my Elf apart but I'm afraid I would not touch anyone elses machine if I bust mine so be it.
I would say that from messing about with my own machine I have gleamed quite a lot and as I say am happy with that.But I will miss the likes of Bill who has sorted out my B and H super 8mm which I had no clue about.
There are companies out there as already has been stated but it is not going to get any cheaper to fix a major problem maybe a new thread could be added to this site of persons willing to fix machines.A long shot I know.

The three remaining engineers here are
1/ Kevin Brown (16mm only)
2/ John White (8mm & 16mm)
3/ Bill Parsons (8mm /16mm) subject to his health will decide upon whether or not Bill continues in the future I'd say.

Overseas;-
Edwin Van Eck - Holland - 16mm & 8mm
FFR Filmtechnik - Idstein Germany - 8mm ( Rates 9.5 Euros / 15 minutes of repair time)
Wittners (certain work on 8mm) - Germany

Plus one or two in the USA that I have heard mentioned.

Those are all I know of officially. I am sure many more are at it on a less official basis, shall we say!

I remember having to send my Agfa Sonnector LS2 back to the manufacturer while it was under warranty in 1978. Even then it took two attempts before the "experts" got it working back as it should again!

And Filmkonsult Björn Andersson, in Sweden, not to forget, if you have Beaulieu issues.

Handy for you Mats given his location!

I have never seen Bjorn advertise his services either for that matter, though of course he is recognized as being the number one expert in is field for these machines given his service time with the company as an engineer with them.

Andrew, can you supply the name of the thread on 8mm FT? I would like to read it.

http://8mmforum.film-tech.com/cgi-bin/ub...ic;f=8;t=004650

my reply is also on there so i wont copy and paste chaps,
But to be honest, there will be little interest in anyone outside of the hobby wanting to take up the learning of cine projector repairs. Without a supply of new parts it simply will never happen.
Yes you can get the odd part re manufactured,(as van ek does), i myself can get a local engineering company to knock up metal or plastic pulley's, gears ,mounts etc to be made.
But where do you start? how many of what part do you get made? I bought a fair amount of Elmo Spares from Hanimax and if i am honest, i reckon i will never use 80% of them, in fact you can see what i have right here on this forum, and theirs a few more to boot, Some of the parts i should have bought are The machine frame assembly, (they were expensive but its a hell of part to have including a fully set up gate and pressure pad with lens holder and shutter, all ready to slot in, ALL the green guides, ALL the white rollers, a lot more belts, to name only a few, but who does that? No spares means no one will want to really learn except us blokes who the the projectors,
The one thing i always look out for is another Elmo 1200HD that is in need of repairs, all i want to do is strip one down to see exactly what i can achieve, it would be a hobby within the hobby, unfortunatly i havnt found one yet unless i pay out a small fortune.
Elmo Spares, will i ever use them?

Having the spares is everything Tom. If you never need use them, that is a bonus and all credit to your machine and your methods of using it.
I agree with you though that no new younger people are going to put themselves forward as overnight projector engineers, especially anybody without even an interest in any of this.

As it has been for a number of years now, this entire hobby is entirely based upon being a labour of love. Not one you can ever really put a price upon for parts, repairs, films or even machines. It is all down to the passion of the individuals who want all of these things as to what it all costs.

On the ST 1200 front Tom, I personally wouldn't have thought there would be too much to be gained from stripping down an entire machine to component level just for the sake of it
When these things were first built, even by hand in some cases, they were all built as sub assemblies first before then fitting each of the sub assemblies into position in the very precise and correct order.

That is something only the design teams of these goods and pretty much any other engineering product, know of,.. and trying to work all of that out, precisely in the manner it was intended would be like tackling a Rubik cube for the very first time, at times.

It's something we are partially forced into doing at times when we develop a fault and I can remember seeing the fiasco Bill went through when he had to replace some faulty micro switches on a SH 30 he was servicing of his.
He had to pull out the framework in places, the amplifier board and the speed controlling board just to be able to get at the switches!
A bloody nightmare of a task, even by his own admission.

Of course when this machine was first built, it would have all happened in reverse order so the micro switches would have gone into it at a much earlier stage with no such problems.

Knowing how to dismantle one and reassemble one doesn't therefore necessarily gain you the knowledge of how to just best access one particular faulty part in one area on any given day.
It's something best worked out at the time depending where you suspect the particular fault lies.

Therefore that is why I truly believe that aside from having an understanding of all what is in there, there isn't a great deal to be gained from this whole exercise just for the sake of it.
I doubt you would gain too much by the way of learning how every faulty component in the future could be accessed in the fastest and easiest way without first then fathoming this much out again at the time of the future repair.