Columbia Grafonola

[TomGallopavo]

I know nothing about theses machine and look forward to any opinions you are willing to share. I recently picked up this floor model for 35 bucks with the intention of flipping the cabinet as a bar as the ad said "not working". However upon inspection it appears to be working just fine. So now I plan on reviving it for my basement bar/pool hall and playing records. It appears that the arm and plynth have been replaced over the years. The arm is a Cecilian, or it looks like that under the mica thing. I'm good with keeping it all as is. I'm think of three options:

a) Clean the cabinet and all the mechanicals, replace platter felt, and call it good.
b) All the above and refinish the cabinet and fix the missing record shelves.
c) full restoration with original parts.

Honestly I'm leaning towards a. Fully funtioning but looks cool. Also if you know the model that would be great. Thoughts????

https://imgur.com/a/PLnSuVu

[mrrgstuff]

I know nothing about this particular machine, but personally, all I ever do is (a). I don't even replace the platter felt unless it absolutely needs it

Would be interesting to see some photos if you have some. Thanks

[DanP58]

I’m with Mrrgstuff I like to just clean up cabinet and get it mechanically working keeping all its character for the age , just my opinion
Dan

[drh]

I know nothing about this particular machine, but personally, all I ever do is (a). I don't even replace the platter felt unless it absolutely needs it

Would be interesting to see some photos if you have some. Thanks

Photos are at that imgur link in the original posting. It looks like one of the $75 Grafonolas sold as Leader and under other model names from 1914 through the early 1920s, but hard to tell for sure comparing the photos to the Brumbach book's old engraved cuts. The tonearm and reproducer are definitely not Columbia issue--probably replaced when the original arm got the dread Pot Metal Columbia Tonearm disease. The motorboard is a replacement as well; it appears to be just a piece of plywood that's been cut more or less to fit and stained more or less to match the cabinet. The platter/speed control/what have you assembly, however, looks like Columbia parts to me--but I'd be the first to admit that I am at most very casually familiar with Grafonolas. No telling from the photos if it has the telltale extra holes in the crank side that would indicate it's been remotored. The photos don't show whether it has a pushbutton ejector system for record storage, either, but reading between the lines in the original post I gather whatever was there originally has been gutted.

To the original poster: First off, welcome, and congratulations on buying the Grafonola! It's an attractive machine, and it would be a shame to gut it and turn it into a bar. Frankly, I think it's a shame to do that to almost any old machine, but that's just me. If you want to put it back into original form, you'll need to get some, maybe a fair number of, replacement parts and do some work, but you could end up with handsome results. I wouldn't put too much money into it, however; it's not something that would bring a high resale value, at least in my opinion. If you just want it as a functional but not fully "authentic" accessory with which to have some fun, your (a) option is perfectly reasonable. To make it serviceable, you'll need at a minimum to have the reproducer (aka sound box, the round part with a clear diaphragm at the end of the tonearm) serviced and the motor cleaned and relubricated. Both are in the nature of "routine maintenance" items and shouldn't be terribly expensive. Replacing the by-now-rock-hard rubber gaskets in the reproducer will make an incredible difference in how good the machine sounds, and motor service is needed to prevent old, gummy grease and oil from causing undue wear to the mechanism.

The machine is for playing shellac 78s, not anything vinyl. If you don't have any, you'll want to lay in at least a small stock. Suitable disks are readily available on eBay, or you could try placing a "wanted" ad in the Music Trader section of this forum. For each play, you need to change a steel needle, so you should lay in a stock of those as well. Again, not terribly expensive; you can find them on eBay and various collectors' sites. Your machine is best suited to records from before around 1925; as a very general rule of thumb, look for Victor records with labels citing the Victor Talking Machine Co., Columbia records citing the Columbia Graphophone Co., Brunswick records with black and white labels and "Brunswick" in gold or gold and white with "Brunswick" in black, and Vocalion records pressed in a red clay colored shellac. There are a world of other labels from the period that are also suitable, but those are the most common and would be a logical place to start.

Although you *can* play them on a machine like yours, you'll do better to stay away from Decca, Bluebird (a second-line Victor label from the 1930s/1940s), any Victor that refers to "Orthophonic" or RCA or "Radio-Victor," and any Columbia that refers to "Viva-Tonal" or CBS. These are all later recordings, made with electronics rather than the older "horn-and-diaphragm" method contemporary with your machine, that won't sound very good on a machine of your vintage. Also stay away from Edison diamond discs (easily recognized because they are a full ¼" thick) and Pathé discs with paper labels mentioning sapphire or with label information etched directly into the record surface, which simply won't work on your machine at all and will be damaged if you try to play them on it.

Good luck, and happy listening once you get the machine squared away!

[mrrgstuff]

I did originally miss the photo link, but now,I have clicked it, it seems a very long winded process to reject all the cookies etc, so I am not going to bother. There should be a reject all button

[Inigo]

Besides that, your non-Columbia tonearm and reproducer have certain advantages; when restored and well greased, i mean that ball-like junction and the junction at the base, also the revolver junction that allows turning the soundbox tho play Pathé vertically modulated groove records... It will sound quite good.
Further detailed explanations will follow, watch this thread!

[TomGallopavo]

If I follow you correctly, I need to disassemble the arm and grease the junctions so all the sound travels down the tube?

[drh]

I did originally miss the photo link, but now,I have clicked it, it seems a very long winded process to reject all the cookies etc, so I am not going to bother. There should be a reject all button

I didn't run into such problems, but for convenience of further discussion, here are the photos:

[drh]

... the revolver junction that allows turning the soundbox tho play Pathé vertically modulated groove records... It will sound quite good.
Further detailed explanations will follow, watch this thread!

I missed that, but you're right. So, again to the original poster, you can disregard that I said to stay away from Pathé records, but if you do get any, to play them you'll need to rotate the reproducer 90 degrees, assuming the swiveling arm segment hasn't frozen up, and--this is important--you'll need to get a so-called sapphire ball stylus, which is a metal shank like a steel needle (but usually brass) tipped with a very large diameter jewel. Steel needles will quickly destroy Pathé records made to be played with the sapphire ball stylus. The reason for turning the reproducer is that Pathé's sapphire records were "vertical cut," meaning the groove modulates (wiggles) up and down, whereas what we consider standard 78s were "lateral cut," with modulation side to side. The reproducer has compliance (can read groove modulation) in one direction only.

Here are photos showing a sapphire ball stylus and a closeup of the tip compared to that of a modern stereo stylus assembly.

sapphire_ball 1.jpg (4.53 KiB) Viewed 913 times

sapphire ball 2.jpg (7.3 KiB) Viewed 913 times

This is all probably 'way more than you need to know, as Pathé records are something of a little world unto themselves; take it mostly as background info just so you can focus your energies where they will have the best return.

More for the original poster: Looking at the second photo again, it appears the machine is missing its lid prop. It should have a metal bar hinged to the lid at one end and extending down into the body of the machine through a slot at the other; when you lift the lid to a certain point, the prop will engage a stop and latch into place, holding the lid up until you release it (methods for that vary, but most commonly by lifting the lid again by a little bit and then lowering it). Although you can just lean the lid back against a wall if you wish, I think you'll want to replace that and its associated mechanism for your own convenience.

[edit] Here's a photo of a typical lid prop.

[drh]

If I follow you correctly, I need to disassemble the arm and grease the junctions so all the sound travels down the tube?

Not to affect the sound, but to make sure the arm components move freely so that they won't lock up or cause undue wear when you play a record. The one at the base and the ball joint need to move with no resistance; the entire arm assembly needs to swing very freely side to side, and the segment with the ball joint needs to move freely up and down. Referring to the photo below, the joint circled in red will probably have some sort of click stops but should let you swivel the reproducer, the part circled in green, freely from pointing right to pointing forward and back again, as shown by the red curved line. Be careful; if, as seems likely, it's pot metal, it may have frozen up, in which case it will be easy to break. Unless you acquire some vertical cut records, like the Pathés that have been mentioned, there's no need to mess with this adjustment, as it's already set up for conventional lateral cut records, far and away the most common and the most likely that you will find without going out of your way to acquire them.