The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I have attached a couple pictures of my Edison Home Lid. It feels dry (if that makes any sense) and has some small splitting in places and if you look really close an alligator kind of texture. It doesn't look really bad in person and you have to get your face right on on it to see it but the camera picked it up really good. So my question is, what would you do? Is there some kind of wax or oil I should apply or do I need to lightly sand everything down? I'd hate to ruin the finish or is this just how it is and I should leave it alone? Thanks for any advice.

Brent

Brent,

The lid looks to be in pretty good shape. What you do depends on what you want to accomplish. My recommendation - if you want to clean it up and protect it - would be to glue any lifting veneer, clean it and wax it. Use Kotton Klenser with gentle touch of 0000# steel wool. Let it dry and apply some soft wax such as Howards feed and wax.

The alligatoring is very common. I personally always try and maintain the original finish with very little modification. If the alligotoring is bothering you, you can attempt to sand it smooth. See this article for the process I use: http://forum.talkingmachine.info/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=146. I would be careful on the curved surface as it would be real easy to sand through the finish and into the wood.

If "looks like it just came from the factory" is what you are going for then you will need to either re-amalagamate the finish, or completely remove it and apply new. I would advise against this unless the finish is so far gone that the case is really not presentable.

Be sure to apply the same process at the same time to the bottom of the case

Yep. I totally agree with Brad. The lid actually looks pretty good. After some light, careful cleaning you'll have a real nice lid there. Let us know how it goes.

Martin

Thank You Very MUCH for the good info. I will let you all know how it turns out after I get me some Kotton Klenser and Feed & Wax.