Super8 movies out off ebay

[#Pedro]

Hi folks,
from time to time I like to purchase S8 prints of cartoons and other movies at ebay. Sometimes it happens,that the film seems to be in great shape, even sealed in the box, but when running thru the projector, the picture is unstable, swinging from the left to the right or bouncing up and down and the projector makes a loud noise.
I believe, that is the famous vingage syndrom. Does anybody of you have experiences in kinda "restoring" that kind of stuff? I mean, does it make any sense to put it in cans with conservation liquid or to lub it? Or is the footage hopelessly lost? (Please don?t advise to transfer it to video, cause I am purchasing that films for NOT wathching them on video!)
Thanks,
Pedro

[David17]

Hi,

It's called vinegar syndrome, and it's really a disaster for your movies. They will be gone after some time, I don't know after how long. Do you already smell a vinegar odor? If so, you must take them away from your other films, because they can get it to if you leave them with your other films. It can be a disaster for your film collection.

David

[#Pedro]

Hi, I fixed successfuly the problem and will share it with you:
First, the main reason for the bouncing pictures was a much too high side pressure in the projectors gate (the two sliders which press the film to the refernce guide at the perfo-side of the film gate.
According to the Elmo Gs1200 specs, the side pressure should be within 30...35 g. I measured it using a digital kitchen weight and a wooden stick, fixed to the weight. I was over 100 g, the last owner of the machine may have adjusted it totally wrong. So I opened the spring operating the sliders step-by-step, opening it, measuring the pressure... until the correct pressure was displayed.
After the adjustment, even the most terrible filmes run without horizontal bouncing!
The resting vertical bouncing I eliminated lubrificating with the genious antistatic fluid called RF-001 made by Ingo Reinsdorf (Konica Service, Germany). The fluid is designed to reduce magnetic abrasion of sound stripes and works also very well for reducing bouncing pictures.
What?s astonishing ist that the K40 stock was not affected by the wrong adjusted projector and always runned very smooth as it runs now, too!
Pedro