The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I saw this yesterday on "How it's made" on the Science channel. There were showing the manufacture of disc music boxes, very similar to the old Symphonians or Criterions.

At one point they showed how they wound the main spring.

They had a cast iron barrel with a slot in the side. The spring fed through the slot and the worker turned a large crank to wind the spring around an arbor. You can see in the pictures, at about 4 o'clock on the barrel, a retaining arm. After the spring was wound, the large crank was removed, the retaining arm slides out, and the worker holds the destination barrel next to the spring and is held by the retaining arm. On the opposite side of the cast iron barrel is a another crank the pushes the wound spring out of the first barrel into the destination one. Obviously, the cast iron barrel is smaller than the destination one.

It was interesting to watch as it was most likely how it was done at the factories a hundred years ago.

(Sorry for the camera shots off my TV, and sorry to the Science channel for lifting their content.)

Brad,

Very cool, and thank you for sharing these. Even with the photos of your television, it’s clear what they are doing (in my opinion).

I think it counts as ‘fair use, for educational purposes’ when you re-post things here.

— MordEth

I wonder where I can get me one of those contraptions?

And definitely fair use for education.

Way cool! Thanks for posting these Brad.
I've always wondered how it was done at the factory. You wouldn't want to be winding in 300 springs a day by hand like I do it.

Zeppy wrote:I wonder where I can get me one of those contraptions?

And definitely fair use for education.

There are several different types of mainspring winders used for installing the springs into clock barrels that you can use. These can be found at clock supply houses like Merritt's and start around $200.00 and go up.
I've used a Webster's winder for years and they work quite well.

Thanks for posting the pics Brad, good stuff to see. I'll have to keep an eye out for or if they replay that episode. the How It's Made is quite a neat show, one that I try and catch as often as I can. Ive read about the Victor factories in the Looking For The Dog book, but it would have been cool to actually see video of how things were done back then. Process's and manufacturing are interesting to me as I worked many years in metal fab shops. Thanks again for posting Brad.

gramophoneshane wrote:You wouldn't want to be winding in 300 springs a day by hand like I do it.

And look how clean his hands are!

Yes, and he's not even wearing gloves

I have an original gramophone factory spring winder in my collection - maybe now I'll be able to figure out how to use it!

Brad wrote:And look how clean his hands are!

Obviously he isn’t following the Edison directions for lubricating springs!

(1) Lubricating the Spring. First immerse the spring in Edison oil. Allow the spring to stand a short time so the oil will drain from it, leaving only a light film of oil on the spring. Apply Dixon’s No. 2 flake (Edison) graphite over tile entire surface and in the central open coils of the spring. Remove the surplus graphite from the spring, by striking the spring a few times on a flat surface, thereby leaving a thin coating of graphite on all surfaces of the spring.

(2) The new spring, still in its wire container, is laid in the case with outer end of spring in the right direction as in Figure (3) and (4). The hole in the end of the spring is elongated. The large end of the hole should be placed directly in front of the hook in the rim of the case and the spring struck a blow with a mallet, to force it down into the case and release the wire container. The hole in the end of the spring will snap over and catch on the hook.

(3) Next, complete lubricating the spring by applying a large tablespoonful of Edison Spring Lubricant to the coils of the spring.

With that mixture of graphite and oil, I think it would be impossible to keep your hands clean.

— MordEth