The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

The business machines are beautiful in and of themselves. But being less usable, they are more of a static display. There certainly have been collectors of them and I have corresponded with some of them over the years, but I guess they have all the machines they desire. If you have a shaving machine and a supply of blanks, you could certainly use one of these to record . . . something or other.

The easiest way to do it, if certain factors would allow, would be to make new drive gears for the existing Business machine feedscrew. Changing the gear ratio lets you retain the screw & ½ nut. As for mandrel RPMs, a larger drive pulley may be needed. The existing drive pulley is very small and it appears that there's lots of room to enlarge it.

One other consideration , supporting keeping this machine original, is the electric motor it uses. Unless the magnetic pickup you plan to use is very well mumetal shielded, the AC field that the motor generates could find its way into the pickup windings. Heard along with the desired signal as a 60 cycle hum. A mumetal shield could be used on the motor, but it would be a very difficult experiment to determine what shape, size and location it would have to be installed on the motor to be effective

Obviously a spring driven machine would not have that problem.