The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I made some You Tube videos a while back when I replaced a broken spring from my Edison A250 Diamond Disk Phonograph. They received a lot of views so I thought I would provide a link here. It was the first time for me to work on an Edison motor and it proved to be a major challenge. I have been please with the results, but I can't over emphasize the difficulty and the risk that I took. Had I lost control of the spring, I could have suffered a painful injury. If you are smart, you will pay to have a professional do it for you. I would not do it again. The spring tension was so much higher than the Victor motor I had worked on previously.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... WA2GdGcZ76

A long time collector and acquaintance, who has done hundreds of spring repairs, lost control of an Edison spring which flew out of his hand and gashed his arm. Because of all the dirt and grease on the spring, he developed Sepsis, which is a dangerous blood infection and ended up in the hospital... fortunately he survived with no permanent damage.

That being said, it is a very dangerous job, even if you have lots of experience... one slip and you might not be lucky enough to recover.

The only DD spring I ever serviced was on my BC-34; and even that was a handful.

I send springs out now: I'm too old for that s***.

- Bill

It's not the first time that I read Edison's DD springs being so stiffer than all others. I wonder how they were installed at factory, was it done by a machine perhaps?

The service manual has a photo (see fig 3 in the attached file) with a pair of hands manhandling the beast!

Some years ago I replaced both springs of my Opera phonograph. It was very scary, I missed not having an middle age armor to wear, including a plume on the helmet, which would not add protection but would add a touch of class to an otherwise messy task.

I'm sure it couldn't have been done that way in the factory. Can you imagine someone's hands at the end of the day, even if they wore gloves???

I installed a C150 spring many years ago, when I had more muscle than I currently maintain. It got scary when I was only ½ way done, but began to realize my grip was weakening considerably. It was a race to the end. When I got done, my hands were near blistered and my wrists were pretty darn sore. I'll tackle any number of springs for other makes, but I'm not looking to do any other Edisons. (I can't even imagine a Triumph spring!)