Stuck Springs

[gramophoneshane]

Looking at your video, in my opinion you haven't got enough grease in the barrel, and I don't understand why you would wind it up without the cover on the barrel.
It seems a bit pointless to me, but that's just my opinion.

[JeffR1]

Looking at your video, in my opinion you haven't got enough grease in the barrel, and I don't understand why you would wind it up without the cover on the barrel.
It seems a bit pointless to me, but that's just my opinion.

I explained this in that post, here it is copied and pasted below.
My nylon cover is not permanent, when I solve my problem I will put the Victor cover back on.
The video does not show it, but even though it does not look like there is a enough grease in there, there is still to much that causes the springs to "stick" and "release" when winding up.
Adding more grease just makes things worse, and causes what you see in the video when winding the triple spring motor.

Modern grease can be spread very thin to do their job, unlike a mix of Vaseline and graphite.

"It makes an odd sound like squirrels in the attic.
To demonstrate this, I've removed the steel Victor cover and replaced it with a piece of nylon to show exactly what's happening when winding up"

I will make a another video when I get the combination correct, this will show a very quite "wind-up" and "unwind".

[gramophoneshane]

Looking at your video, in my opinion you haven't got enough grease in the barrel, and I don't understand why you would wind it up without the cover on the barrel.
It seems a bit pointless to me, but that's just my opinion.

even though it does not look like there is a enough grease in there, there is still to much that causes the springs to "stick" and "release" when winding up.

If there was enough grease, it would be oozing out all over the place while you wind it.
When I do a spring, I put the clean spring in the clean barrel, then I pack the centre of the spring almost completely full.
Then replace the cover, put everything together then wind it up with the motor running, and I wind it fully.
That way the spring is getting grease distributed around the coils everytime you wind up the motor.
I've done it this way for over 40 yrs, using various types of grease over they years, and have never had a problem with any of them.
A thin layer of grease smeared along the spring is useless, unless it's an open spring like you'd find in an Edison Gem are a Pick.

[JeffR1]

Looking at your video, in my opinion you haven't got enough grease in the barrel, and I don't understand why you would wind it up without the cover on the barrel.
It seems a bit pointless to me, but that's just my opinion.

even though it does not look like there is a enough grease in there, there is still to much that causes the springs to "stick" and "release" when winding up.

If there was enough grease, it would be oozing out all over the place while you wind it.
When I do a spring, I put the clean spring in the clean barrel, then I pack the centre of the spring almost completely full.
Then replace the cover, put everything together then wind it up with the motor running, and I wind it fully.
That way the spring is getting grease distributed around the coils everytime you wind up the motor.
I've done it this way for over 40 yrs, using various types of grease over they years, and have never had a problem with any of them.
A thin layer of grease smeared along the spring is useless, unless it's an open spring like you'd find in an Edison Gem are a Pick.

OK, what was the last grease you remember using, that would be very helpful ?
One can have different kinds of Lithium grease for example, they can have different binding "soaps" that change the consistency of the grease and that will have an affect on how well they work in a gramophone motor.

I have two Lithium greases, one with 3% moly and one with out, one is black (that's the Moly) one is white, (it's actually a flesh tone colour).
The two are very different, the Moly one is stringy and sticky, the other is more the consistency of soft butter in the summer time.

I'll try both types with your method, but it would be nice if you could remember the last grease you used to save me some time.

If that method has worked for you for 40%, I must be doing it wrong, I am greasing the entire spring, then installing it.

[gramophone-georg]

I'm going to throw a monkey wrench in the works here, because, well, that's what I do.

Here's my formula:
One part this:


To three parts this:
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51+ ... SY741_.jpg

Mix it together as thoroughly as possible with a paint stir stick. It'll make a thick flowable synthetic grease that's too thick to leak out of your barrel but thin enough to flow past everything in the barrel as you wind the spring. Pour ¼ cup of this, give or take depending on spring size, into your assembled spring barrel and put the cover on, and assemble your motor. On the first wind it will squeeze through ALL crannies, including between the spring and barrel surfaces- in my opinion and experience, THAT is where a lot of sticking/ thumping issues occur- the tolerances are simply too close for a paste or grease alone to react quickly enough. You'll have a happy motor that you won't need to service again. No stuck springs, no broken springs due to lumps of graphite.

I'll warn you that the gear oil DOES stink a bit, but not as much as a broken or stuck spring.

You can use this, or reject it and tell me it's not "correct" and dismiss me as a dilettante- it won't offend me in the least. I'll just keep enjoying my silent, trouble free spring motors while you flail!

[JerryVan]

I admire your tenacity. I would have quit the hobby by now...

Luckily, in 40 years of cleaning & greasing springs, I have never had the least bit of trouble.

[Inigo]

Tenacity, or machine love? There's among us an instinctive moving power: not to let alone something broken or improperly working that can be disassembled to see what happens there... and then to repair it.

[JerryVan]

Tenacity, or machine love? There's among us an instinctive moving power: not to let alone something broken or improperly working that can be disassembled to see what happens there... and then to repair it.

Yes, I know what you mean.

[JeffR1]

All of this is just my opinion, you may do with it as you wish.

The photos show what grease is left on the spring after it was fully packed in the centre on a dry spring and barrel.
Most of the grease ended up on the barrel and on the cover (not shown), there was so much grease that the cover was being displaced from the oozing grease.
I eventually removed the cover and scraped off the excess grease, and the oozing grease pretty much stopped, but still there a little _ not much of a concern though.
There is not a great deal of grease on the main parts of the coils nor does it appear that any excess grease works it's way back into the coils.
The amount in the centre seems to stay there because the motor is not wound to the top.
I believe that the action of the grease continually moving from the centre out to the coils and back again is false.

Never the less this all works well because it spreads the grease evenly on the coils of the spring, and this is very important.
What I have discovered is that it's pretty much impossible to pre-grease the spring and get it even enough so it winds up properly, and more importantly, unwinds evenly so "thumping does not occur.
I think if one pre-greases the spring before installing it, or even while you're adding grease while coiling the spring into the barrel, you get lucky that the spring is quiet upon use.

By itself the CV-2 grease is too thick, it does not allow the springs to wind down fully, at least on the Victor spring that I was using.
The spring is a little weak to over come the thick grease and fully wind down, there is still a little tension on the spring and on the turntable spindle.
It's not much tension, but it's there.

I believe Gramophone-Georg's solution works well as it's thinned down enough as to not effect the tension of the springs, but thick enough to stay inside the spring barrel, as he says.
Further more, it allows easy application of the grease being able to just pore it in.

I would say to use a synthetic grease, it's very stable and wont' dry out as much as non-synthetic grease, the trick is finding the correct grease and the mix to thin it down.
That doesn't mean to say that any non-synthetic grease isn't any good, run-of-the-mill grease has been around for many years and works well enough.

Adding a solid to any grease seems to be helpful as this helps to keep the coils from coming in contact with each other, Molybdenum Disulfide is best here as its granular size is very small, much smaller then graphite.
Amsoil makes a synthetic grease that has 5% Moly in it, most are 3%, that's till adequate though for a gramophone spring.
The grease is still a Lithium Base grease with a Synthetic oil in it.

About oil, I found it does not work with the Victor spring that I was using, it may work with a stronger, wider and thicker spring.
Oil causes thumping when winding down.
It does not stay put, it is easily squeezed out of the coils and what's left isn't enough to keep the coils from binding against each other.
This binding and letting go causes "thumping"