Columbia portable model 112a - photos and a question

[Marco Gilardetti]

Speed variations can be due to an unbalanced governor, take a look in the motor and check if all three springs and weights are properly screwed, and if the felt friction bracket is in good shape. Sometimes a good cleaning to remove the old petrified grease and oil in the moving parts is enough to restore the proper functionality.

Glen, as it seems you have already done what Carlos suggests, it comes to my mind that you perhaps forgot to generously lubricate the felt pad that runs over the governor's friction disc. The felt acts as an oil reservoir and needs to absorb quite a lot of oil. If the felt and disc are not freshly lubricated, the gramophone will never play well.

[Phono48]

Here's my 112A. I can confirm that this model was never fitted with any other sort of brake other than the one you have. Also see the correct needle bowl cover fixed in the lid. It's spring loaded, so that when the lid is closed the disc presses on the rim of the bowl.

With regards to the wow and flutter, this is almost certainly caused by the governors not being able to travel along the central shaft smoothly. The governors need to come out, then removed from the shaft. The shaft is then cleaned, polished and oiled.

Barry

[recordo]

Thank you all so much for the replies and photos - sorry for my delay in getting back to you - I took delivery of my Credenza yesterday (a rare machine in Australia!) so that took up all my time just moving it inside the house!

I really appreciate your replies, and I'm going to investigate further all the solutions you've given me.

In the meantime, here's a short video I made just now showing the flutter effect (I always thought "wow and flutter" were measured together because when CD players first came out "wow and flutter" was always described as "not measurable").

Thanks again and regards, Glenn.

(Double-click the video above or click this link to go to the video on YouTube.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5u9Tjnr75o4

[Marco Gilardetti]

I've listened to the videoclip and it seems to me that this is an odd flutter case: too slow for being caused by the regulator, too fast for being caused by a warped/miscentered turntable. I suspect that some intermediate gear might be the cause.

As suggested earlier, however, the next task is still to lubricate everything accurately. Perhaps nobody (myself included) has stressed that also the regulator axle has to be lubricated, because one side of the friction disc and coils/wheights assembly must be free to move along the axle.

I would then carefully inspect the motor while it runs free, and see if there is any warped/misaligned/too tight gear that may cause the problem.

Should everything fail, it is possible that you may have to service the springs' barrel (or have it serviced by an expert).