Newest member of the "Family"--with a question

[drh]

Fresh in from eBay, a cute-as-a-button little keywind Pathé cylinder player with a salon slip-on mandrel and the systeme verite horn suspension. (As an aside, just how cute is a button, anyway?) I spotted it last Sunday with about an hour to go, and, yes, I dropped out of warp--it was a bit of an impulse purchase, although I can take comfort in knowing that there was only one other bid, and it was barely above the minimum. From what I've seen in some web browsing, I gather this machine is a Model 1 and a knockoff of a Columbia graphophone. I also gather Pathé made more than one version of the Model 1, although I'm not clear how to tell them apart. In the few videos I've seen, some set the key to unwinding, a la an Edison Gem, as the machine runs; on others, the key stays still. Mine is of the "stays still" variety. Anyhow, having now spilled what doubtless seems a thousand words of dubious worth, here's a picture:

It also came with the lid, which has a pretty decent (not quite perfect) decal:

lid.JPG (248.88 KiB) Viewed 518 times

Now, a question. Its belt is shot--it's frayed; it's crudely patched; and, not surprisingly, it slips badly:

As things stand, the machine really isn't a useable player, but I'm pretty confident a new belt would resolve its issues. Anybody know where I could readily get one already made up?

[PeterF]

You can make one for it yourself. There needs to be a fitting done - it’s not really very feasible to make measurements for someone to try to make one for you remotely.

Get some belting material or a piece of supple leather, cut a strip of the right width, and a little longer than needed, then slice each end to a flat taper. Then check for fit, make any adjustments, and glue the ends together with contact cement.

This looks like a good tutorial:

https://youtu.be/NF9A-_xMBck?si=2vaM1TfCrZVtJEFo

[KCW]

Cool machine! I agree, measuring and cutting a belt is pretty straight forward. All you need is the leather belt, razor blade and some glue. Get some extra belt as the first try or two might not work out right. It’s surprisingly simple and oddly rewarding too!