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Cliff's parts worked out great and my ornate Columbia phonograph has come back to life!

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HELP HELP!! I picked up my first ornate Columbia upright phonograph as a project and read a couple of posts with regard to removing a Columbia reproducer from the tone arm and thought I would give it a try because the reproducer was in bad shape and ended up shearing the neck off of the reproducer!! The neck is now stuck inside the tone arm neck. In the process of pulling the pin, it came out completely; it disengaged from the inner spring. I had to use a pipe wrench to turn the reproducer clockwise so that the needle holder was at the 12 o'clock position but could not pull the reproducer off. It was really stuck. I ended up tapping the back of the reproducer with a piece of wood and ended up shearing the neck off.

The elbow that connects the tone arm to the base of the horn is falling apart also around the screw securing it to the tone arm. I'm about to try using JB Weld on it. This is really frustrating!! Does any one out there have the elbow, tone arm, and reproducer for a fair price, to make life simple again?

Please let me know!

Thanks!

AR

You'll need to post pictures and measurements of what you need. These parts changed over the years and you can't really mix and match.

Here are some pictures of what I need. The tone arm is about 8 inches from end to end and the reproducer has the ring with the four tiny holes and is about 2 ⅝ inches in diameter.

It looks like these are not common parts, due to the lack of response.

Does anyone just have the elbow? The outside diameter of the bottom hole is about 1 inch.

Thanks!

AR

The problem is that these are commonly broken parts, because they were made from pot metal (white metal, zinc). Because of this there are many Columbia machines missing these parts. Some of the Phonograph repair people in the US have reproduction elbows available, some even machine a new connector into your tonearm. This obviously will not be cheap I'm afraid, but for an ornate Columbia model I may be worth it. The reproducer is very common and can be found relatively cheap on ebay. Even on good examples the connector to the tonearm may be swollen and will need some work to file of the excess. I am not aware of anyone making replacement tonearms. Your best bet may be to send everything you have to an experienced repair shop who offers the repairs I listed above.

Andreas

I just got this in a box of parts from an auction. The bottom section of the tone arm base is about ⅞" deep. The part of the tone arm that attaches to the reproducer is missing the inner spring parts, but it looks like you could salvage them from your parts. Also, there is no needle screw, but yours should work. PM me for more details if you are interested.

Cliff

Cliff,

Thanks for your response! PM sent.

AR

Cliff,

The parts worked out great! PM sent.