Fiber gear or no--Question about a Vic I motor

[JerryVan]

Victrolacollector: You raise some very good points. When it's clear to me the gear is a metal, I believe it's OK to oil such a gear. This particular gear looks to be brass, and Braker in his article on Victor motors states that it's brass. But he could be wrong. This goes back to my first post. This gear looks to be brass, but I have seen metallic-looking composites before. I have little intention to play this machine. Perhaps I will degrease it. That may be the best course of action.

Anyway, the S/N is 9703B.

For heaven's sakes, IT'S BRASS.

[JerryVan]

I avoid playing the fiber gear machines a lot, they are just too prone to wear in my opinion.

Could the lack of oil have anything to do with it?

[Marco Gilardetti]

I avoid playing the fiber gear machines a lot, they are just too prone to wear in my opinion.

Could the lack of oil have anything to do with it?

Agree in full. Has any period direction by any make about keeping fibre gears dry ever been found?

[jboger]

Marco: I do not know.

Most of you have been at this game far longer than I. When I read the back pages of this Forum, as I have, I found an Eleventh Commandment: Thou shall not oil a fiber gear. (Well, not in so many words.) But the repeated message from many members was not to lubricate this gear. And carefully clean it with only a spritz of WD-40 quickly wiped off.

This has made sense to me from my experience with wood works clocks. These sort of clocks have their wheels and plates made of wood. One does not oil the pivot holes of a wood plate with any oil as the oil, over time, will soften and degrade the wood. The effects of this I have seen.

I thought experienced members on this Forum were united in the opinion not to oil the fiber gear. Now I find out otherwise. Alas, what is a poor soul to do?

[jboger]

For those who may be interested, here is a picture of the machine sitting on the table unsold at the auction. Fate brought us together.

[Marco Gilardetti]

Fate brought us together.

Amen!

[Marco Gilardetti]

I thought experienced members on this Forum were united in the opinion not to oil the fiber gear. Now I find out otherwise. Alas, what is a poor soul to do?

It wouldn't be the first time that I see on the internet a completely wrong tip repeated and multiplied ad nauseam by others, possibly with little or no experience at all (see all the warnings about razor-sharp springs' edges or springs unwounding 10 mt. long explosively and killing people like a cobra - clearly stuff copied and pasted by "experts" who never really handled a spring, and possibly not even a gramophone in general).

However, when debates as long and as tedious as this surface, in my opinion it means that it doesn't make any real difference: adding oil will not soften the gear in a remarkable way, and non-oiling it will not eat out the gear nor grip the motor. So do what you feel most confident doing, based on your experience as a clockmaker. Remember, though, that this gear is not made in wood. Personally I will continue to lubricate them as I have always did, as I feel that the motor runs much more smoothly and steadily and I never observed the mentioned "softening" of anything. Also, all period directions that I've seen say to lubricate them.

[Inigo]

I also have a suitcase portable (my very first gramo, bought in 1984) with a one spring thorens motor. It has a fiber governor drive gear, where the thick fiber is sandwiched between twin thin brass or steel similarly dented plates. I kept using (and abusing) that poor Gramophone on a daily basis for some twelve years, I kept the gears always well oiled, and never noticed any degradation nor failure in the fibre gear nor in the motor...

Now this machine is disassembled, waiting for the case to be recovered with Rexine... At the beginning it was a nice dark green, which was somewhat dirty. At one point I decided (pity me) to peel it off and recover the case with a new red leatherette cover, which i did. Fifteen years later it started to peel off at the corners and seams, and some years ago I decided to remove it completely and recover it with a good green leatherette as similar as possible to the original (still part remnant on the record compartment flap board). Never continued this work, because of fear, and because I'd like to reshape the motor board to relocate the motor and gain a better tracking angle (it was horrible). Need to find an expert on recovering suitcases, not to expensive, to do the work for me.... The new motorboard and recovering it I can do, but the suitcase with all those corners...
I've been also tempted to discard the wood and make a new frankenphone with the hardware. But with a small single spring motor, a bad designed tonearm (great air gap at the base connection) and a bad copy of the hmv101 horn (terrible sound with peaks in the mid register)... The only good thing was the soundbox, a marvelous Thorens no 17 which delivers a powerful sound. But even that isn't the original, which crumbled in hands after long years of repeated experimentation. Some years ago I managed to find another fresh and sound example, which is safely stored until I decide to reassemble the machine. If only because it was my first gramophone ever...!

[Marco Gilardetti]

Inigo, I never tried that route myself, but here there are specialised craftsman called (literally) "fabric holsterers", which specialise in rehauling the seat of chairs, redo couches and saddles and so on, who specialise in re-covering things with fabric, leather, straw etc. who can probably do a good work with corners.

I also had crazy projects about my first gramophone - a very cheap portable with a generic motor and an "electric" alu diaphragm soundbox - which I own since I was a kid. At a point I even purchased the hardware needed to transorm it into a sort of twin-arm machine that could read both vertically and horizontally recorded records. But then - just as you did, to some degree - I left it alone.