Fixing blue amberols

[Homestead]

That is why the Edison Laboratory Fire of Dec 1914 was so bad. It began in the film department where the extremely flammable nitrate film stock was kept. Similar to Guncotton (nitro cellulose-cotton soaked in Nitric Acid used in explosives) it is almost impossible to put out and burns so very hot. The fire then spread to the phonograph building loaded with Celluloid cylinders, wood cabinets, shellac, stains and it became an inferno. Edison's fireproof concrete buildings even endured structural concrete failure in areas due to the immense heat. One interesting note was that the Edison Home Kinetoscope films were made on non-flammable film stock, the first use of the same. This preserved many of the Edison Films available today. If they look fuzzy and grainy that is because those saved images were transfered not from 35 mm film stock but the 22 mm triple tracked home films. FYI James Manker