Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers (1930-1949)

100 R. H. TALBOT Vol 45, No. 2 However, that situation did exist with the result that we were called upon to replace thousands of sprockets. Our company is in business to make money and cannot continue to replace sprockets. The projectionists just would not use them. I agree with the gentleman who said it would be a wise plan on the part of the film manufacturers to supply the sprockets themselves, but I don't think that would work either, as they would have the same problem and the same results. Anybody like to rebut that? MR. TALBOT : May I ask you one question ? Are you sure that those sprockets used at that time were hardened steel or were they soft steel? MR. GRIFFIN: They were hardened and ground steel. The radii were ground also on all of the teeth and still are. MR. TALBOT: The only thing that I can say, more or less in rebuttal, would be that if these sprockets have been in use for approximately one year and still give double the life of film, it would pay the exchanges to replace the sprockets today if they had to. I mean, if after a year they are still getting better runs, even if it were true at the end of a year the sprockets began to wear and had to be replaced, it would still seem worth while for the exchanges to do this rather than have to buy so much film. MR. GRIFFIN: With that I heartily agree. Nevertheless we had to shoulder the burden and would not want to have to do it again. I still want to recommend a 0.943-in. sprocket. Any further discussion? MR. E. J. DENISON: Regarding edge damage to film, mentioned in Mr. Talbot's paper, it has been my experience over a period of years covering film exchanges that a great deal of the edge damage is actually done during rewinding of the film in the exchanges and not by projectionists or projection machines. If one will visit the average film exchange today he will find that rewinds are badly out of alignment, with the result that the film traveling from the freerunning reel to the rewinding reel is drawn across the side of the rewinding reel, resulting in the film being broken through from the outer edge to the perforations. Further, the out-of-line setup of the rewinds results in some convolutions of the film protruding from the side of the roll. When one reel is stacked on top of another during handling by the film shipper or truck driver, these convolutions which protrude from the roll are broken down by weight, resulting, of course, in considerable edge damage to the film. The matter of edge damage to film has been discussed before the National Film Carriers Association for several years past, with demonstrations as to the cause of this particular type of damage, as well as the SMPE, without result. The National Film Carriers Association has taken serious steps in the past to prevent undue rough handling by their drivers, but to my knowledge they have had little success. From time to time the .idea has been advanced that some of this edge damage is due to poor quality of film which, of course, is not true. A number of years ago I made a slow-motion picture for Paramount showing damage to film due to improper splicing. This picture demonstrated the necessity of proper splicing in order to prevent damage to the film at the point of splicing. Today several of the distributors have their exchanges equipped with a modern and efficient splicing device, with the result that these distributors have very little film dam