Featured Phonograph 126 - Diamond Disc/Amberola "mock up"

[52089]

very interesting indeed! My speculation is somewhat along the lines that others have mentioned. This was spawned from a leftover cabinet that employees might have been given for free or given at substantial discount. "Single spring motor and nickel reproducer, who cares??? Got myself a Christmas present for the Mrs." Who knows.

One thing this example does is reinforces Edison's willingness to cobble things together.

The nickel reproducer on the gold horn is a bit odd, but what is really striking in person is the gold lift rod and finger near the nickel brake. It's very tempting to swap the brake out, of course documenting the swap and keeping the original with the machine.

BTW, the nickel reproducer polished up really well. Thank you, "Mother's"!

[Valecnik]

very interesting indeed! My speculation is somewhat along the lines that others have mentioned. This was spawned from a leftover cabinet that employees might have been given for free or given at substantial discount. "Single spring motor and nickel reproducer, who cares??? Got myself a Christmas present for the Mrs." Who knows.

One thing this example does is reinforces Edison's willingness to cobble things together.

The nickel reproducer on the gold horn is a bit odd, but what is really striking in person is the gold lift rod and finger near the nickel brake. It's very tempting to swap the brake out, of course documenting the swap and keeping the original with the machine.

BTW, the nickel reproducer polished up really well. Thank you, "Mother's"!

I would not change a thing if I were you 52089. It's highly probable that the way it left the Orange site is exactly as you got it, nickel reproducer and all. Of course, it's impossible to tell.

[52089]

Well, I've had a few days to play with the machine, clean it up, etc., so first, here are answers to some questions.

Rich - you may be onto something with your rejected cabinet theory. The cabinet appears to be in basically good shape, but the veneer on the lid seems to be completely missing any grain filler. That would certainly be a reason for a reject.

Fran - pics you requested are below. The number stamped on the motor casting is 20023 if memory serves correctly. Looks like a typical B250 motor. Let me know if you have additional comments.

Jerry - yes, I did indeed find stamped numbers. Under the lid hinge, on both the cabinet and the lid, is stamped "275". This is particularly interesting to me. My 1A is serial number 267 on both the ID plate and motor, but it has the earlier "cloven" feet. I am going to have to check my 1A cabinet for other ID numbers; I have long suspected that it was cobbled together from multiple machines.

Other comments:

The Amberola logo on the lid was definitely painted over with white paint at some point. The last flakes of paint are still visible. The decal area itself is very coarse. Someone clearly tried to just scrape it off instead of chemically removing it.

The cabinet cleaned up nicely with Goop. I touched up a few scratches with concealer pens. Based on some experimentation, I decided not to use Restor-a-finish as I didn't think it would really make much difference. I put a coat of Feed-n-wax on it last night, and this morning it had been nearly completely absorbed. Talk about thirsty wood!

As with the other "X" machine, I had great difficulty opening the rear door. I got it open once, but since then it has been pretty well jammed shut. Not critical of course.

A couple of cleaning lessons learned: 1) Ammonia will indeed clean up verdigris on gold plate, but it can also attack paint. I got one drop on the bedplate and realized too late that it was eating the finish away. When cleaning the horn connector, the ammonia took off a small area of black paint just below the gold plated area. That area also appears to be plated! 2) When polishing the nickel plated edge of a turntable, be sure to protect the felt, otherwise you may get spots of white polish embedded into it that don't want to come out.

I hope you have all found this interesting. Please let me know if you have any further questions, comments, theories, etc.

[fran604g]

Thank you, sir! Very interesting.

Fran

[fran604g]

I have one more question that I thought of, if you don't mind: what are the cabinet dimensions?

Best,
Fran

[52089]

I have one more question that I thought of, if you don't mind: what are the cabinet dimensions?

Best,
Fran

The lid is roughly 22.75" x 21.5". From bottom of foot to top of lid is roughly 48".

You may also find it interesting to know that I had falsework from a C-19 lying around and tested it on this machine. It fit quite well with no more than about ⅛" gap on any side. I'm not leaving it there, but it's interesting to see that the inner cabinet size of an Amberola and a DD are almost the same.

[fran604g]

I have one more question that I thought of, if you don't mind: what are the cabinet dimensions?

Best,
Fran

The lid is roughly 22.75" x 21.5". From bottom of foot to top of lid is roughly 48".

You may also find it interesting to know that I had falsework from a C-19 lying around and tested it on this machine. It fit quite well with no more than about ⅛" gap on any side. I'm not leaving it there, but it's interesting to see that the inner cabinet size of an Amberola and a DD are almost the same.

Thanks! That is interesting, but given the importance that the motor plate brackets fit the standardized Type B mechanism, I'm not surprised. I'm more curious as to why the bracket on the left side of the cabinet wasn't one already tapped for the turntable trim piece's screw fastener. Maybe the parts department said "NO! Don't take one of THOSE! Those are already tapped for new machines! Take one of the UNTAPPED ONES!" lol, that's what I would've said.

Best,
Fran

[52089]

As you well know, the bracket for the left side of the motor is designed to allow for some play in the width of the cabinet. And yes, you'd think that since this bracket is specific to that location they would have tapped it out. I did notice that a stop is installed at the rear of the machine to keep the horn from swinging into the cabinet. That's about the only "custom" Diamond Disk part in the actual cabinet.

[52089]

As noted on another thread, I managed to reassemble the grille, touch it up, and change the cloth to something a bit more suitable, even if it's not truly authentic. Here's a pic of the result. The cloth is actually a bright red, not the pink/orange shown in the photo. Blame the lighting. I have put the previous cloth in one of the drawers with a note detailing as much as I know about the machine. I don't think I'll be doing anything else with this other than minor maintenance.

[52089]

Another of these has been found - here's the thread for future reference.

http://forum.talkingmachine.info/viewto ... =2&t=37640