04-14-2009, 08:05 PM
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Craftsman
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Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Canon City, CO
Posts: 100
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Royatl
Welcome Mike, and bravo!
Only last August did I finally get my hands on my own copy of your initial contribution to the hobby, a Cineroc (I have a long story somewhere else on YORF about mowing lawns to buy one in 1971 only to have the funds diverted to a 35mm camera to cover my trip to NARAM 13 that year).
When it went away in the mid 70's, the scuttlebutt was that Estes could no longer obtain the motors used in it. I thought this was a rather odd reason, as from my examination of John Langford's and Mike Myrick's Cinerocs (usually after they had crashed!), the motors looked like standard issue motors you could find in Allied or Lafayette catalogs back in the day.
My first question: Was motor un-availability the real reason the Cineroc was discontinued?
(and of course, by "motors" I mean the small electric ones, for our readers who are more easily confused!  ) |
Roy - there wer a number of issues that all came about in a short amount of time that helped put the Cineroc down.
Yes, there was the motor issue. The manufacturer got up and evaporated. Our search for a replacement did not go well. I designed the film advance around a certain motor that ran at 'X' rpm at at 'Y' current. Then the case had a specific mounting method and the plastic of the camera were designed to match. If a suitable motor was found with different mounting, then we woul have to go back and spend the money to correct the molds.
Secondly, the original lens mold was one of a kind. We had that tool made just for the Cineroc. It certainly was not an Edmunds lens as so many have speculated. We had lost first one, then two of the four cavities by carelessness of the manufacturer. Then they played a numbers game with us to try to increase the price of the lens with only two healthy cavites.
Then the people who processed the film said they didn't want to do it anymore. We couldn't find anyone anywhere who would custom process little 10' lengths of Super 8 film.
Then on top of this came the new Damon management with their cost cutting games. That pretty well ended any hope to put some money into repairing Cineroc tooling.
And pretty much everyone who wnated a Cineroc had bought one by then and sales were down. So it was many things that ended the Cineroc. Sure was a great product though.
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