Home Movies (Jan-Dec 1941)

LiINEBUGS ! Meet the dreamiest of “Dream” cameras — a hopped-up Cine Kodak Eight recently completed by William F. Conley of Watsonville, California. It boasts such features as a reversible 6 volt electric motor; 100 foot capacity double8mm film chamber with built-in footage counter ; a reciprocating film claw that works equally smooth whether film is run backward or forwai'd ; a viewfinder adjustable for parallax ; single frame crank ; and a frame counter. Conley turned out the job during spare hours in his garage workshop with materials and parts that cost but $12.03 ! Conley’s incentive for re-modeling his Model 60 Eastman camera sprung from descrip FIG. 5 tion of the first “Dream” job which appeared in the January, 19.39, issue of Home Movies. Then, when he read in the September (1939) issue of still another amateur’s success in hopping up an 8mm Cine Kodak, Conley cleared the decks of his workshop and set to work in real earnest. His camera was disassembled, measurements and calculations carefully taken, a list made of needed materials and parts, and the work begun. The $12.03 was spent for the following : 1 Veeder-Root counter ; 1 eighteentooth bevel gear, 32 pitch ; 1 eight-tooth bevel gear, 32 pitch; 1 sixteen-tooth spur gear, 48 pitch ; 2 ball bearing sets ; 1 Klaxon hornjoiotor; sheet of aluminum ; supply of imitation leather ; piece of stainless steel; Eastman sprocket gate ; and an Eastman crank for the single-frame shaft. The film chamber mounted on top of the camera was constructed from scrap auto-body metal, cut to shape and welded from the inside. The regular camera footage counter and window was removed and fitted in the film chamber. The chamber was fastened to the camera with three bolts. Two holes were then cut through the camera case and chamber to permit threading of film, as shown in Fig. 6. Inside the film chamber is fitted a separate plate on which are mounted the spindles for the film spools. Both spindles are floating, extend through back of plate, where they are fitted with grooved pulleys linked together with a spring drive belt. This belt contacts the takeup gear of the camera. Ratchet dogs work on both pulleys to facilitate backing up film when backwinding or Aiming reverse action. Also mounted on this plate is the footage counter, a small disc marked off for 100 feet. Hub of the disc is a small clock-gear with five teeth. Onefoui'th of a gear, cut to match this small clockgear, is attached to shaft of arm that rides on the film to indicate amount of film in chamber. To facilitate feeding film to and from film chamber, a sprocket assembly from a model “E” Cine Kodak was fitted just back of the large film gear of camera as indicated by arrow in Fig. 6. Action of the pull-down claw was changed so that it will run film forward or backward. This necessitated turning a small part on a lathe. Then the main spring gear v/as moved from the side of the camera next to the framework and the bronze gear turned around. Most interesting, perhaps, is the motor drive J 118