EWC phonograph: problem when winding

[Curt A]

Oh well, sorry, I tried... It's really difficult to imagine how to fix something without being there and seeing it in person. I agree with Marco on the pointed end being the part that locks the backward travel... the hooked end just travels along over the gear teeth and allows it to run forward without engaging. I can't remember which machine I had that used that same type of pawl and it was somewhat confusing to put everything back together properly. I was used to pawls that had a spring on them.

[zapper]

Hi Oliver
your reply to my post regarding the recorder prompted me to look up your other post regarding EWC phono. Have you got it working now?
Brian

[JerryVan]

If you haven't found the solution yet you might consider the following arrangement. Short of making new parts, it should work and requires very minimal alteration.

[Menophanes]

I am afraid this project is stalled for the moment. My last attempt was to modify my previous idea of using a watch mainspring so that it would press against the left-hand end of the pawl rather than the right-hand as I originally envisaged; in theory this should have had much the same effect as JerryVan's suggestion, with the difference that it pushed the pawl from below instead of pulling it from above. However, on reassembling the machine I found that the rotating parts were grinding against something, or against each other, instead of turning freely as before. Possibly the spring had got out of line while I was manipulating the mainspring cage into position and was now fouling one of the wheels. At any rate, I am a little discouraged for now. There is a phrase somewhere in Kipling about 'the perversity of inanimate objects' which always echoes in my head in this kind of situation.

Oddly enough, I recently saw an incomplete Gramophone & Typewriter machine on eBay in which somebody had modified the pawl in exactly the way Jerry has described, the upper end of the spring being hooked onto a screw driven into the underside of the motor-board. I can see that this suggestion makes good sense; only it would entail drilling accurately into the narrow edge of the hard steel pawl in order to fit the bottom anchorage for the spring, and I could so easily make an irreparable mess of this. However, I shall try again some time.

Oliver Mundy.

[JerryVan]

Oliver,

While a hardened pawl would be ideal, I doubt that this one is. (Although, it is German, so maybe...) To center the hole, you'll need to first mark the spot with a center punch, the position of which the drill will follow.

Whatever you decide to do, I wish you the best.

[Herman]

I think Brian is correct regarding wear to the ratchet. I opened mine for comparison and pointed like Brian's. See pictures.

I love this little phonograph but unfortunately my trunnion is shot.