Thank you for allowing me to become a member of your forum! I recently started watching old VHS tapes to decide which ones to get digitized, and in my searching through boxes from my husband's parents, I found THIRTY EIGHT Super 8 reels from his childhood! Camping trips to San Onofre and Leo Carillo, band performances, and family Christmases etc from 1967-1974! We were so excited, that we purchased a "new" Eumig 824 off of Ebay. This projector is literally new in the box...obviously purchased or received as a gift back in the day but never used. Still in styrofoam with all the cables in bags, in pristine condition - like it has literally never been used or even out of the box! We were so thrilled when it arrived, and assumed that we could just follow the instructions and watch a movie! But alas, there is something wrong, and we have destroyed the lead on 3 different films because it gets caught up right where all those little hinges come together when you hold down the lever for the feed. We are so bummed! Fortunately, it is only the white lead that is crunched up, not the actual film reel, but even so, now we're terrified, and pretty much at a stand still because we don't know a single person who has any experience with this! I am hoping that someone in this forum will have an easy fix! Thank you for your help!