Automotive Degreaser?
We knew we were rolling the dice buying relatively old 35mm projectors. The good news is they’re mechanically in great shape. The bad news? They’re filthy. Really, impressively filthy.
They were probably drive-in machines. Drive-in projection rooms are often glorified sheds, with nothing to keep out the dirt, exhaust and grease cars kick up. Even with regular cleaning, these projectors can get grimy. These machines did not get regular cleaning.
These photos are the ‘after’ shots. Before we even loaded this projector in place, we spent around 60 hours cleaning it. There are a lot of tight spaces on these machines, and they were covered in some sort of mystery grease. so getting it ready meant a lot of time with toothbrushes, denatured alcohol, and q-tips. So many q-tips.
Now we’re on to one last major project. Inside every projector is something called an ‘intermittent assembly’. The image needs to hold still on screen, so the film can’t move continuously. It has to intermittently pause. The brief moment of still image is what you see on screen.
This assembly is delicate, and complicated, and in this case, filled with some sort of goo. That means a total disassembly, and cleaning, and with any luck, a fully working projector by next Friday when it’s supposed to put an image on screen. We’ll post some pictures of the intermittent assembly while it’s disassembled, because it’s a pretty cool piece of engineering.
t2’s Double Feature with Loowit Brewing
We were too busy for the last few months, but we want to get back to giving double features the full Cinemagic treatment. That means another grab bag of random trailers on 35mm film, a partial tap takeover by Loowit, raffle prizes, and more.
5:40 - Doors Open
6:00 - 35mm Trailers
6:30 - Terminator 2: Judgement Day
9:00 - More 35mm Trailers
9:20 - Trancers 2: The Return of Jack Deth on V.H.S.
Elm Street Double Feature
We’re going to skip over the Nancy Thompson free Nightmare on Elm Street 2 for now, and run the first and third entry in the franchise. Don’t worry Elm Street Fans, we’ll get to some of the other entries in the future.
6:00 - Doors open
6:30 - 35mm Trailers
7:00 - Nightmare on Elm Street
8:40 - More 35mm Trailers
9:10 - Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
Weekday Sneak Peak
These won’t go up on the homepage until Monday, but we just locked in our shows for February 20-24. If you hop straight to our ticketing page you can pick up tickets in advance of their proper anouncement.
Sunday, Feb 20 - Miss Congeniality
Monday, Feb 21 - The Departed
Tuesday, Feb 22 - NotCoolPDX Presents The Hudsucker Proxy
Wednesday, Feb 23 - The Outlaw Josey Wales
Thursday, Feb 24 - Dark City
The Batman
Opens March 3, Tickets on sale now.
Patch Notes
Cleaned the upper feed sprocket with a toothbrush.
Cleaned the outer intermittent assembly with a toothbrush, some q-tips, and a little plastic toothpick.
Cleaned the outbound sprocket. Toothbrush again.
Cleaned the shutter assembly with automotive degreaser. Also a toothbrush.
Cleaned and rebuilt the reverse scan audio reader. This one was rubbing alcohol and q-tips start to finish.
Scrubbed down the entire machine with automotive degreaser.
Cleaned the projector interior. Used everything.
There’s more. So much more. But you get the idea.
