Rebuilding Orthophonic (portable) reproducer - advice needed

[AllWoundUp]

Bought a pot metal ortho portable reproducer for my "new" Credenza on ebay & got it today. Took it all apart and the pot metal parts are all in good shape.

The ball bearings were nice and rusted into the races, held in with small washers and some kind of nasty hardened sealant goop. Got the outer races out but what I need to know is, how do you get the needle bar out? seems like the pivots would have to come out. Is that even possible? I'd like to clean & polish the bearing surfaces of the pivot.

Thanks, Mark

[OrthoFan]

I know that the needle-bar's cross-bar (whatever it's called) that's suspended between the rings of ball bearings can be knocked out, so that the entire needle bar can be removed. I've never tried this, though. I had one Orthophonic sound box that was pretty gunked up with rusted ball bearings. (This one didn't have the petrified "rubber" rings over the ball bearings.)

After removing the ball bearings from one side, I took a Q-tip, which I dipped in a little Brasso, and worked it around the cross bar to clean off the inside surface of the racer. It took about five or ten minutes of careful polishing and about 20 Q-tips, but it came out pretty clean. Then, I cleaned off the area with some light-weight oil and installed the new ball bearings. After that, I tackled the other side.

It sounded as good as most "restored" sound boxes I've listened to, when I was all done. (Unfortunately, that sound box ended up getting knocked off a balcony, a few months later.)

I think there's one or two Ortho-experts on this forum. Hopefully they'll chime in with some suggestions.

OF

[gramophoneshane]

I dont know if this will be any help.

http://www.gracyk.com/orthosound.shtml

[larryh]

Interesting post. thanks.

[Nat]

I've had two restored by Walt Sommers, with excellent results. They're pretty finicky; No 2's and Exhibitions are fairly easy, but I won't touch an ortho.

Nat

[AllWoundUp]

Hi Walt, thanks for all the good info! Hopefully the races/pivot will polish up without losing too much material. Do you sell the parts for these? I'm going to need bearings, back flange, reproducer and gaskets. Also, do you know where I could get a set of the bearing covers used on the non-portable repros? since the screw holes are there, I' thinking I could tap them, use the covers, leave off the dust cover, fill in the screw holes and repaint it to make it look more like the original type. (more work than it's worth?

Here's some pics of my mosty disassembled ortho:

[couchpotato]

That's a great picture of all the orthophonic reporducer parts. Any chance you can take another one but will all the part turned upside down? I have two of these I may wish to restore but have been holding off since I'm not quite sure how it was put together. These picures are half of that puzzle so I think seeing the other side would fill in some missing information for me.

[AllWoundUp]

couchpotato

I can't at the moment as I've got it all back together again. I replaced the bearings (antiquephono.com) and the diaphragm (phonographs.org) For now I have some homemade paper gaskets in there but I'm waiting on some neoprene sheet which i'm going to use for gaskets. When i get it, I'll take it apart again & take more pictures.

I was able to get the pivot out of the needle bar by using a short piece of copper tubing in a vise that just fit over one side of the pivot, then drove it out with a punch.

As for attaching the spider to the diaphragm, i followed the advice of the folks at Shenandoah Antique Restoration (shenandoahrestoration.com) and snipped off the little tabs that go through the diaphragm and epoxied it on with JB Weld. Not exactly "authentic" but much easier and didn't have to punch holes in my $20.00 diaphragm!

[Steve Stephens]

Does anyone have some photos they can post showing a brass orthophonic reproducer? I have never seen one and would like to know the differences other than the brass vs pot metal. It is my understanding that the brass ones came on the first four Orthophonic machines that were introduced. Is that correct? Thank you.
Steve

Edit: I may have somewhat answered my own question by searching on google for "Brass Orthophonic" where I found...

[Steve Stephens]

And the other side... (but I am willing to see other photos that will show more details)