Magnet Striping in perfection

Alberto Vangelisti is more than a tinkerer — he is apparently a gifted engineer: He managed something that the most proven machines failed in recent years: Design, construction and operation of a machine that reliably magnet-stripes any type of films (including polyester), precise and extremely inexpensive.

Albert next to his unique machine

Alberto’s machine uses a homemade magnetic paste that becomes “one” with the 8 or 16 mm film and thus cannot detach itself. The paste gets applied automatically and at high speed, so that even very long films can get their tracks applied in a single continuous run. A similar technique was used in Kodak’s PS materials (“Pre-Striped”). The sound tracks of these films also survived the later machine processing without any problems.

Alberto can apply main and balancing track to both Super 8 and 16 mm material. This not only enables stereo sound, but also ensures good sharpness through leveled positioning in the film gate.

The achievable sound quality is excellent (as measured by magstripe standards), as the pigmentation of the magnetic paste is extremely fine. So there are no sound dropouts or dynamic fluctuations. The sound head wear is also likely to be kept to a minimum.

The best thing, however, are the prizes with which Alberto gives a real gift to all the small gauge film lovers of the world:

  • Pre-washing of the film (necessary before applying the sound track), up to 720m: €10
  • 60 to 300 m film: €30 (60m is the minimum length)
  • 301 to 480 m film: 50 €
  • 41 to 720 m film: 60 €

Alberto also offers to remove existing sound tracks cleanly. This is especially practical in the case of defective sound tracks, the grey traces of many Derann copies, for example, tend to lead to failures. For 720 m film (i.e. 4 reels with 180 m each), he charges just 50 €.

The prices for 8 and 16 mm material are the same. Payment can be made via Paypal or bank transfer, Alberto ships the day after payment of the invoice, which will be sent after completion of the order.

For orders, Alberto can easily be contacted at moviemagnetic@gmail.com.

It doesn’t get any better than that, does it?

Applying magnetic paste

The result is highly precise and even

Friedemann Wachsmuth

Schmalfilmer, Dunkelkammerad, Selbermacher, Zerleger, Reparierer und guter Freund des Assistenten Zufalls. Nimmt sich immer viel zu viele Projekte vor.

2 Comments

silvia311 Posted on 18:18 - 1. October 2021

Sarebbe stato carino e rispettoso se in questo articolo fosse stata fatta almeno una menzione a Alberto Frosecchi. La persona che per primo con tanta passione mise insieme questa macchina pistatrice con banda magnetica. Colui che la restaurò, creò i suoi colori e la fece vivere. Colui che tanto amò il collezionismo cinematografico.

silvia311 Posted on 18:34 - 1. October 2021

E pensare che proprio quella macchina è stata la passione dei suoi ultimi giorni di vita…che l’ultima foto “in piedi” è stata scattata a casa nostra proprio accanto a quella macchina…e che quella foto gliel’ha scattata proprio Vangelisti !!!!

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