Thank you for your compliments, phonosandradios.
Your cabinet is in better shape than my cabinet, that obviously have been stored in a not too clean barn or similar, for decades. I have this morning spent not less but 3 hours deep cleansing the top lid with several layers of Swarfega, a rough task where I used a kitchen sponge (whatever that is called in English) that has a somewhat soft abrasive side in addition to the normal sponge side. Using classic Swarfega (non abrasive), I have been able to remove old paint, and also liquids that earlier have been contaminating the wood. I upload a photo of the front, it is now drying together with the lid after also being cleansed with Swarfega. I will upload photos of the lid later on, to see the difference from the early photo I uploaded of the lid some days ago. I have decided not to strip any part of the cabinet. I was prety sure I would need to strip the lid, but after today's work, I see it is not necessary. (Thank you, Andreas;) I have never worked so hard on a wooden cabinet before with Swarfega, and I could easily have given in on the lid, actually only some weeks back, I would have given in disbelieving it could be saved.
About you servicing the machine. I am afraid to say something wrong here, since I myself started with some portable gramophones, before moving on to gramophones with bigger springs and more springs. The size of the spring is actually on your side, if starting with these springs, since bigger springs are easier to work with than smaller springs. If you never have removed a spring, I would highly recommend you to watch a video on youtube made by the now deceased gramophone enthusiast Graham Barber, he shows in an excellent way how to service a machine, even if the machine on his vide is a HMV 101 portable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOP_xeP8dyA&t=113s
On the Columbia spring barrels screws are used to hold the container together. They are easy to remove, but not always that easy to fasten again, since they often seem to be of uneven size. I had to skip one screw myself, but that really doesn't matter, since they are abundant.
I have a feeling you already are used to working with your hands? I remember you said you were in your garage working. I am not saying people who are not used to working with their hands can not do this, because I am a teacher myself, and taught myself this work only a year ago! Some people are however less confident and used to trust themselves on such manual work, and it is of course a factor that one can not underestimate. I would say patience, resistence and focus are most important factors when doing this kind of work.
What is important, is to take photos when you disassemble the machine. Then you will have something to look at when assembling the machine again. In addidion you can of course ask me here, I will be happy to help. The three springs are all left winded, it means, you need not remember what direction each spring is running inside the spring container, something one normally always have to pay very much attention to when removing the springs. It is not difficult to put them back into the motor, again take some photos of how they are positioned when removing the parts.
Be prepared for a really dirty work, it is really messy in there. Feel free to ask questions as you move along, of course.
And if anyone have any comments to add...feel free, of course !
As you can see I also have a challenge with my cabinet, I miss a door knob.
I also did a mistake on the front with some abrasive, trying to remove two small dark marks that I at first thought were some stains, but I discovered too late they actually are part of the wood grain. Now I will have some work trying to camouflage them. So be careful.
Martin
Ps. If you decide to service the machine yourself, the first step you take, after removing the top plate where you find the auto brake etc, is to loosen the set screw on the axis that go through all the spring barrels. One screw holds them all, and the axis was easy to remove on my machine, thanks to the good grease used by Columbia on these early machines. ( I do not have the same experience from bigger HMV machines, where heat often have to be applied to release the same axis). When you remove this axix the barrels will be loose, they are all similar, so you don't need to notice to each of them to separate them from each other. Take a photo of the gears though, and notice the position of each barrel, since two of them are attached together, while the last one is single.