NEW ORWO STOCK - TEST RESULTS

David Jean Schweitzer, SOC · May 28, 2023

5 hours ago, Ludwig Hagelstein said:

Great test. How did you perceive perf stability?

As rather poor as compared to Kodak.

Robino Jones · June 7, 2023

On 5/28/2023 at 5:37 AM, Ludwig Hagelstein said:

Great test. How did you perceive perf stability?

You can see in the test side by side with the 5219 that the ORWO is really unstable. I was watching this video about how Kodak makes film, and you can see how complex and precise the "Hearts" are to perforate the film. Boggles the mind - I suspect ORWO may not have this level of precision, which results in stability issues. Fascinating stuff! Here's the video, I cued it at the perforation section.

Edited June 7, 2023 by Robino Jones

Simon Wyss · June 7, 2023

It takes two to tango, punch and die are one part of the perforation story. The other is the web, the substrate, the very plastic material used with a film stock and that can be of good, mediocre or inferior quality. Sometimes old jumbos are used up that hold lateral and or longitudinal tensions from ageing.

Once coated, the base can further change dimensionally. If the stock keeps shrinking or stretching after the perforation you have what you have.

Punch and die can be made to match within almost nothing, less than a thousandth of a millimeter or 30 millionths of an inch. The precision of the spacing from one punch to the next is generally kept within 0,01 mm or four tenths. The punches are separate parts, dies are solid blocks with the apertures in them. The precision of the spacing between the hole groups cut together is a bit lesser. Advantage of continuous perforating, spacing is more even.

I have the impression that the substrate is cheapo stuff.

Don Cunningham · June 7, 2023

That's a great video. My last job was as an accounting clerk (4 years) for a mom/pop metalworking shop until it closed down. Mostly oil gear, but also did some weapon stuff. It was fascinating to see a process from drawing to final product. So much time and money needs to be invested into the tooling and set-up, dialing everything in to meet tolerance, testing, reconfiguring, running samples, etc.

Robino Jones · June 7, 2023

I heard that back in the heyday of optical compositing, Kodak would put aside the first batch of film coming off a newly aligned cutter/heart and it would be reserved for big shops like ILM. If anyone knows anything about this, please chime in; this is very interesting.

I really didn't know how complex it was to perf film, you can see in the video the first heart is for B&H perf and the second one (with the microscope, it's for Kodak standard (KS) - I wish they showed the 16mm and 8mm cutters too and elaborated on the alignment, how long before you need to re-align, are the punch becoming dull after a while? etc