Columbia Grafonola Tabletop Barn Find and info on its restoration

[swamprad]

Very impressive restoration, thanks for sharing the photos and the information.

[Herderz]

Thanks all, dzavracky thank you for the great pics and the time you took to dimension your louvers. I was able to use your pics with the ruler to scale and make a pattern.

Your machine is and upright were mine is a table top. There are a little differences but angles and engineering should be the same. Your machine, louver pivot pin to louver pin looks to be about 3 ½", mine is 3" pin to pin. I just scaled my blanks to 3" pivot points for the louver pins and the linkage rod. I will rivet the linkage together after final drilling of rivet hole and bent tabs to move the louvers. Then I will blue the steel. Here is where I am at today with my blanks.

[Inigo]

You have very solid and useful skills! I wish I could do that!

[Herderz]

Hey Indigo, I thought you where a engineer? Let me guess, Electrical or chemical, not mechanical? Just kidding.

[dzavracky]

Looks great!

I totally forgot to make some measurements of the opening mechanism! Do you need me to go take some? (I will not be able to do them until tomorrow evening... I have two engineering finals tomorrow and I gotta study )

David

[Herderz]

Thanks David, But I am able to get what I need from what you posted for me. You have done way more than what I have needed. Thanks for the louver detail but I think by all the research that my machine has flat louvers on both sides and does not have the curve on the inside. They are 3" buy 12 ¾", just different horn opening.

[Inigo]

Yes, yes, Herderz... I'm a civil engineer, and my dedication was concrete foundations and structures. Also steel, but I don't like it as much as concrete. But since a few years, I am only reading and writing things, doing qualitative evaluations in new experimental projects related to energy, still in conceptual phase... it's a bit of castles in the air. I need to put my claws firmly again on a piece of real concrete!
I love gramophones because of their physical simplicity. I cannot avoid thinking that this idea could have been invented thousands of years ago... We could have recordings of the voice of Egyptian pharaohs, Roman imperators, greek philosophers, arab and hindi scientifics from the old ages... Even Jesus! This technology is so simple... All those old ages men and women had the skills and media to have done this invention much earlier! Have you seen the delicacy of old egyptian jewelers? They had wax, wood, iron, and had hydraulic power to press records... Maybe some day we'll discover old recordings from one of these lost civilizations...

[Herderz]

Hah hah, yeah I am a art major in my younger days but have been able to use those skill sets on different media, including concrete. Just use the same mindset, do not get caught up on what is in front of you, just plan on how you want to get it to where you want it to be. Works most of the time for me.

[Herderz]

I drilled all the holes on the blanks were I thought they should go and bent over the louver tabs per my thickness of the louvers I am about to make.

I used degreaser on the pieces to prep them for bluing

After bluing the pieces are ready for staking.

I used my clock staking anvil to stake the rod and levers. The rod runs on a shoulder on the rivet, the rivet is staked solid on the louver cams.

As far as I can tell right now the new linkage will open and close the louvers if I can make them right.

[dzavracky]

Looks great! I am excited to see the finished product.

Cheers,
David