Beginner with an Edison Gem - Spring Slipping?

[Voxophone]

Hi Everyone, and greetings from the UK!

I've recently made my first venture into vintage phonographs by picking up an Edison Gem along with a few cylinders. I've been interested in these things for a while but have never used or repaired one before. Unforuntately its the latter my machine is in need of at the moment, so I'm hoping to get some advice.

Generally the machine seems to be in good condition. The grease has not hardened and the moving parts turn freely. The problem I'm having is that the spring does not hold the tension applied to it by the crank. As soon as the crank is released after winding, the spring instantly unwinds without turning the mandrel - which I'm thinking can't be good for it. At very low levels I can get the spring to hold some tension and turn the mandrel, but the torque is insufficient to play a record.

Would the above problem be indicative of a broken spring, or could it simply be detached?

What I'd like to do is remove the motor to get a closer look at the spring to see if there is any damage (without actually removing the spring itself). I've found some good dissassembly guides for other phonograph models on the net, but the Gem appears to be different in a number of ways. Parts of the motor attach to the walls of the case, and the spring does not appear to have a barrel or can around it. Does anyone have any specific advice for dismantling the Gem?

It would be great to get this machine running again. My comfort zone is restoring valve/tube radios and other vintage electronics so this is a bit of a learning curve for me! (Not enough wires!)

Thanks for reading.

Liam

[12jslater]

The ratchet mechanism could be at fault hard to tell without pictures. If you can't send pictures try cleaning the ratchet mechanism and lubricating it's shaft with oil and the gear surface with grease.

Hope it helped.

[stevel]

Get yourself a copy of Mike Fields book

http://www.clpgs.org.uk/reference-series.html

Steve

[Voxophone]

Thanks both for your replies.

I traced the unwinding problem in the end to the small gear on the first shaft which takes the output from the ratchet. Instead of turning the shaft and transmitting power to the rest of the machine it was slipping and releasing the tension all at once. Removing the first shaft and cleaning it free of grease seems to have done the trick and I've now had the machine running. I also removed the mainspring and most of the other components for cleaning and re-greasing.

At present I can't get the machine to play through a full record so some further work will be needed. I havent cleaned or lubricated anything on top of the machine so I think I'll start there. I read somewhere that the Gem is known to be an underpowered model but still I think it could do better.

Great to hear it running all the same!

Cheers

Liam