RESTORATION (Date 22-Mar-08)

This past Saturday was a very exciting day for this restoration effort. In between Easter Eggs, I went to downtown Buenos Aires to pick up a Lamphouse and a Pedestal. Another benefactor of this process, LFC, located this two machines for me and negotiated a decent price.

We got together in what was once the heart of the entertainment district, where we met a local tech, who is sitting on a gold mine in the shape of obsolete film exhibition equipment. Totally neglected, but with the power to shine again.

The pedestal ended up being a heavy and obtuse chunk of metal that didn´t appeal to me. Instead, I ended up exchanging it for a soundhead, which appeared to be an RCA, but ended up being a autoctonous José Reyes Soundhead.

The soudhead came together with a Westinghouse syncronous motor together with a drive train to transmit motion to the soundhead sprocket, to the projector and to the lower reel.




The Lamphouse I ended up buying is a Cinemeccanica Zenith 420. It was manufactured for carbon arc, was later adapted for a Xenon bulb and, after years of neglect, was ravaged for spares and any copper that could be sold off for a quick buck.