Edison Home Phonograph Slows Down

[alessandrotnt]

Hello everyone.. maybe I was not clear enough... But the half nut is in good conditions.. at least looking at it, the threads are very good without worn..

I reask about the belt tensioner: I am not able to remove the pulley to have good access to the belt tensioner lever. I was wondering if I can remove the belt tensioner with the pulley in its place through one of its 4 holes. Thanks!

[gramophoneshane]

If you don't want to remove the belt tensioner arm, I'd apply gasoline or turpentine etc with an artist's brush, and try turning the roller by hand.
You should be able to apply whatever solvent you use several times and use a tissue to soak up the solvent between coats.
If there's a lot of verdigris present, you can usually scrape a lot of it away you a screw driver blade or razon blade or similar.
Once the brass wheel is turning freely, apply a tiny amount of oil to the centre and you should be good to go.
Just be sure there's not too much oil present or it will end up getting soaked up by the leather belt.

[FellowCollector]

I was wondering if I can remove the belt tensioner with the pulley in its place through one of its 4 holes.

I have always removed the belt drive pulley first to allow removal of the belt tensioner assembly. Remove the belt from the drive pulley. Loosen the set screw on the drive pulley (rotate the pulley until you see the set screw). With the drive pulley set screw loosened carefully rotate the drive pulley back and forth on its shaft while at the same time gently pulling outward on the pulley. The drive pulley shaft should not be allowed to rotate while removing the drive pulley. With the drive pulley removed you will be able to remove the belt tensioner assembly.

When re-installing the belt drive pulley, slide it onto the shaft loosely and then stand over the top of the upper belt pulley (the driven belt pulley). Looking straight down through the belt travel opening you will now be able to vertically align the drive pulley perfectly with the driven pulley. When the drive pulley is in perfect vertical alignment with the driven pulley tighten it down on the shaft, install the belt and you should be good to go.

Doug

[Raphael]

I probably shouldn't comment here, as my skills in diagnosing and repairing phonographs are usually limited to boxing them up and sending them to those that have such skills. However, since the original post was made at exactly the same time as my own exact same problem with a Home B, I've been following this thread closely every day. It inspired me to go back to my Home B and check it out one more time before sending it to Wyatt Marcus.

The belt tensioner was just fine, as was the feed screw and half-nut. So I backed off on the feed screw half-nut tensioner about ¼ turn and dammit, that did the trick. Why I didn't do that before is probably because it was so obvious. When I think back over the years, it was a regular solution to many similar phonographs that slowed down.

By all means, fix the tensioner, but if that doesn't solve the problem, my suggestion is to go back to the feed screw and half-nut. Sometimes just an eighth of a turn makes all the difference in the world.

Raphael

[JerryVan]

I probably shouldn't comment here, as my skills in diagnosing and repairing phonographs are usually limited to boxing them up and sending them to those that have such skills. However, since the original post was made at exactly the same time as my own exact same problem with a Home B, I've been following this thread closely every day. It inspired me to go back to my Home B and check it out one more time before sending it to Wyatt Marcus.

The belt tensioner was just fine, as was the feed screw and half-nut. So I backed off on the feed screw half-nut tensioner about ¼ turn and dammit, that did the trick. Why I didn't do that before is probably because it was so obvious. When I think back over the years, it was a regular solution to many similar phonographs that slowed down.

By all means, fix the tensioner, but if that doesn't solve the problem, my suggestion is to go back to the feed screw and half-nut. Sometimes just an eighth of a turn makes all the difference in the world.

Raphael

Good advice from Raphael, and some others too. I'll just add that the feed screw needs to be repaired. First, excessive ½ nut pressure will stall your phonograph, (as Raphael & others mention). Second, forcing the ½ nut past the damage by using extra pressure will damage the ½ nut in short order. In the past I have used a very fine file. I have started with a file that has a knife edge profile. I grind down the backside of the file at a sharp angle to create an even finer, sharper knife edge. This leaves only one face of the file intact, (the backside being ground down). I then carefully engage the knife edge of my file into the feed screw thread and file away any rolled over or mashed threads. Takes care and patience.

As for the tensioner roller. There is no need to disassemble anything. Swing the tensioner arm away from the drive pulley as far as it will go. Heat the roller with a small torch or even a cigarette lighter. The old, dried oil will melt away and the roller will turn again. Add fresh oil.

[alessandrotnt]

I have been able to remove the belt tensioner without removing the pulley. Now it is doing a bath submersed in gasoline.. I think I'll give it a couple of hours and then I'll see if the brass wheel can turn without friction. I hope to be able to update this post with good news soon!

Thank you very much for sharing your knowledge!

[alessandrotnt]

And here comes the update, with good news!

The belt tensioner brass wheel is now running smoothly: ⅔ hours of gasoline bath and then a drop of sewingmachine oil did the job.

Re-mounting it with the pulley in its place was quite hard but not impossible (damn little spring!)

But the good news is that now it needs less winding crank turns to have the phonograph run till the end a cylinder without stopping or slowing down.

So over all I think that this is the best I can do considering that:

1) I operated with the motor in the cabinet (I'm still to afraid for a complete dismount!).

2) the feed screw should be replaced with a better one to reduce friction of the half nut.

Thank you all and greetings from Italy!

[gramophoneshane]

That's very good news.
Now you can enjoy all those wonderful cylinder recordings.
Congratulations