Thanks for all this information. Very useful. As can be seen from my Mitchell inside, the big driving cog looks to be a replacement?

Pleasure. So this is what's missing internally from my Mitchell. A flywheel (from another Mitchell image) which may make the cranking a bit easier?

It seems now that when my Mitchell was 'adapted' for single frame animation, the fly wheel was removed, hence the now stiffish movement when turning the crank.

Thanks Ed. I'm in comms with Ken Stone. Good guy. I used light machine oil. Still looking at various options. The movement is very very much looser when I crank using the top left electric motor port, it's just the big central cog that's tough going. Feels as if there's a fly wheel missing?

I've just acquired a Standard Mitchell no 146 out of RKO/Desilu. It's missing a few items, such as the turret and front plate. However the movement is intact, but very stiff when I hand crank. Any ideas? Okay, so I'll use camera oil, but so far it's not making any difference. The camera had previous...