bell and howell filmosound 8 model 458A?

Hi Larry,

I learned to do exactly this over the weekend. Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures, though I'd been thinking about it! I did find one online that I'll be referring to (http://img156.imageshack.us/i/bellhowell.jpg/ ). I'm not experienced with projectors, so I hope none of this is overly simplistic or obvious, but here's the procedure as best I can describe it:

1. Put the rear arm in its lowest position, and put the big empty reel on it, with the printing facing out. The projector in the image has its arm in the upper (rewind) position; that's not where you want it to show films. (It's possible to push the arm TOO low, and then the reel will scrape the casing, but there's a point where it clicks a bit and there's a small amount of clearance.)

2. Put the front arm in the upper position (it has only one position when it isn't folded away), and put the actual film reel on it. The film should be coming off to the right (front).

3. Make sure the selector switch matches the type of film you're using. The tip of the film leader also needs to have a little snip at a particular angle, depending on if it's Super 8 or regular 8mm; there's a device on the projector (lower right, near the front) that does this. It may take a few tries to get it right. Ideally, old film has already been snipped so you have an example of what it should look like.

4. There's a fwd/reverse lever near the middle of the projector body. All the way up for fwd, all the way down for reverse, and the middle is 'still.' Put it to fwd.

5. Put the off/motor/lamp switch all the way to 'lamp.' The motor should be running and the lamp on.

6. Here's the part where a diagram or closeup photo would come in handy. The circled part of the image has two spooly things in it (this is where my non-technical side comes out). The top one is on a lever, and the lower one will be spinning since the motor's on. Pull the one on the lever down as far as it goes and hold it there. Gently feed the end of the film in between them; it should get sucked in easily. Hold that lever down for several seconds, until you can feel that the film has really caught inside the projector -- there'll be a bit of a rattle. Then it's safe to let go of the lever. The film should keep going in.

7. Wait a few anxious seconds while the film feeds through the projector. The end should then come out near the bottom rear of the body, below the rear reel. If that doesn't happen relatively quickly, the film is misfeeding or jamming somewhere, and you need to turn off the projector right away. There's a door that swings out right around the lens, and you can clear jams in there.

8. When the film does come out, it'll flap around for a few seconds and then catch on the empty rear reel and start reeling up there. If it fails to, again, you need to stop and help it out. I haven't actually had this problem, though.

9. When the film is done playing, the image will freeze; turn off the projector. You may need to gently pull the very end of the film free of the projector.

To rewind:

1. Put the rear arm in the upper position.

2. Pull the end of the film straight over to the front reel. The tip needs to get caught in a notch in the middle of the reel; there's also a notch on the outside of the reel that points to the inner notch so it's easy to find. It's not always easy to get the film to go into the notch or catch, so this may take a bit of work.

3. Spin the front reel a few times to get the film started rolling up and verify that the it's caught adequately.

4. Move the fwd/reverse lever all the way down, to reverse.

5. At the top of the forward lever, there's a metal piece. Use it to pull the lever as far forward/down as it will go, and hold it there. If you don't do this, the rewind will go very slowly and I don't think the tension will be right.

6. Put the off/motor/lamp switch to motor. The film should quickly rewind.

And that's it! Aside from getting the arms in the right positions, the only hard part is that initial feed, and that's only hard because it isn't terribly intuitive (until you've pulled down the little lever) or easy to describe.

I hope this helps!

Judy
October 2010

oldtimercameras.com

dave
October 2010