Our all new 35mm perforating machine

[ADOX Fotoimpex]

With construction works beeing finished in our "smallest film factory of the world" we start positioning the machines and taking on the production.

In recent days we were pleased to be able to pick up our all renewed 35mm perforating and marking machine from the factory where it was originally built in 1964 and 1980. We dropped off two machines from our stock (one from 1964 and one from 1980) one and a half years ago and last month the owner rang us up and informed us that the total rebuilt was finished.

He stripped down the machines to the die cast chassis, made one out of two, painted it and refurbished all moving parts before reassembly.
Thus we are proud to announce that ADOX 35mm film will be made on the world´s newest perforating machine from now on.
This ofcourse implies that no one else is crazy enough to built an all new 35mm film perforating machine today.
Well, at least I don´t know of anyone...

The machine represents German mechanical machine building craftmanship at it´s peak.
Acording to the owner who works there since 1962 (now doing other things than building film perforating machines) a machine like this cannot be built today because the fine craftmanship has been lost. The perforating pins and matrix have been built to an accuracy of 2/1000th of a milimeter over a length of 9mm. The people who made these are retired now and upcoming fine mechanics are not challenged to such a degree anymore because today electronics supervise mechanics and automatically correct mispositioning. Our machine has to be so precise that mispositioning cannot occur in the fist place because back then no electronic supervision was possible.

We work with 4 positioning pins and 4 perforating pins. The accuracy achieved is so high that it can be used for movie film. The holes are accurately positioned up to 2/100 of a milimeter against each other.
This is not actually necessary for still image and we could have used a two pin positioning but hey, we are Germans by birth.....

The last image shows one of the donating machines which we handed over to the machine builder. This machine is from 1964 and still worked fine untill the day we dropped it off.

Kind regards,

Mirko

 

[georg16nik]

Fantastic!!!

 

[summicron1]

glad to hear it -- much luck and many sales to you...

 

[ic-racer]

Awesome!

 

[munz6869]

That's wonderful - long may it perforate!!!

Marc!

 

[zsas]

Woooooohooooooo! Beautiful and exciting! Thanks so much for the share!

 

[brucemuir]

I tip my hat to you sir!

 

[Jedidiah Smith]

Hi Mirko,
Thank you for sharing this great news with us! I hope things go very well for ADOX in the future, and for the record, your ADOX CMS 20 is amazing.
Keep up the great work,
Jed

 

[EASmithV]

Glad to see ADOX continuing to carry the torch!

 

[Marc B.]

Great news!
Any 'Guess-timates' (estimates), when we will start to see film from this machine,
and which emulsions will initially be available? 24 exposure rolls, 36, bulk 100 ft rolls?

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Congratulations!

 

[Worker 11811]

The perforating pins and matrix have been built to an accuracy of 2/1000th of a millimeter over a length of 9mm. The people who made these are retired now and upcoming fine mechanics are not challenged to such a degree anymore because today electronics supervise mechanics and automatically correct mispositioning. Our machine has to be so precise that mispositioning cannot occur in the fist place because back then no electronic supervision was possible.

This reminds me of some stories from working as a cinema technician.

Not only are the pins and matrix machined to sub-micron tolerance, they are custom machined as a matched set.
One of my jobs as a cinema tech was to maintain and repair splicers in the booths that I serviced. I visited each one of my theaters every 30 days, on average. Each time I arrived, I would go to the storage cabinet and pull out all the parts from broken and disassembled splicers that people had taken apart and couldn't put back together again.

A cine film splicer LOOKS like a simple thing but it is a very difficult thing to assemble and calibrate properly.

The pins and matrices are numbered and they only go together one way. Once you know how to do it, match the serial numbers and look for the alignment marks, they go together smoothly but get them out of order and they'll spite you! What's worse, if they don't fit and you force them together, you'll wear away the cutting surfaces and they will never work correctly again.

You have to assemble the two pieces then bolt the unit to the bottom plate but don't tighten. Then, you align the punch plate on the guide rods and bring it down on top of the top punch. (The pins.) Once you get it aligned, bolt and tighten. Check alignment and tighten the bottom plate and test for correct meshing and operation. Once you get that far, you can slide the top punch/pins assembly off the guide rods to install the springs. Put it all back together and attach the cutter blades and the fulcrum/handle.

I used to just collect all the broken and disassembled splicers in a box. When I got home, I'd dump them out on my kitchen table and use whatever parts I had to make as many working splicers as I could. I'd put them into boxes and stow them in my car. When I visited a theater, I'd get a box out of my trunk, deliver a splicer and pick up the parts of the broken ones that were invariably lying on the shelf.

Just fixing splicers that make one cut on one frame at a time is frustrating enough. At the end of the day, I was terribly frustrated.

I can hardly imagine what it would be like to fix a machine that punches film at a rate of 100 feet per minute!

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

Excellent news, Mirko! Keep up the good work. We all appreciate what you do.

 

[mopar_guy]

I will celebrate the new equipment with an Adox film purchase.

 

[Michael W]

I look forward to buying some of the film finished on this equipment.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

yes,keepup the good work. you may well be the last man standing in the b&ww manufacturing world.

 

[NB23]

I will celebrate the new equipment with an Adox film purchase.

Exactly!!

 

[fotch]

Congrats. I will celebrate by buying some of your film.

 

[Jeff Kubach]

Congrats. I will celebrate by buying some of your film.

+1

Jeff

 

[ooze]

Great news Mirko. I wish we saw ADOX products here in Turkey, but it appears there is no importer (yet).

Danke und alles Gute...

 

[sandermarijn]

Shocked and in awe .

Thanks Mirko!

 

[palec]

Keep going. You have my respect.

 

[Diapositivo]

May the Perforating Force be with you

 

[kb3lms]

Really awesome! Keep up the great work!

 

[MDR]

Gratulation, keep up the great work. Maybe you could introduce a Motion Picture Stock in the future.

Dominik