A Vic III New To Me

[Dischoard]

Well, I can finally say that my time has come to an end on this project. After countless failed leads at finding someone who can braze metal together and not wanting to buy an oxyacetylene torch, it finally dawned on me that I could solder these parts together. So I cleaned the area to be soldered with some fine sandpaper (making sure to clean off the nickel coating on the spring barrel), used some ancient Nokorode soldering paste, a butane torch, and some Radio Shack electrical solder that's a little too thick for the electrical parts I usually work on and voila!

You would have thought that would have been the hard part. NO. The hard part was, after getting the spring installed, attempting to get the flingin'-flangin' thing to hook on to the spring in the other barrel! Holy cow, I must have messed around with that for two and a half or three hours! At one point I even removed both springs and re installed them in the opposite barrels figuring I would have an easier time hooking the exterior spring as at least that one wouldn't have another barrel in the way. My goodness I cursed Victor and their cumbersome design for most of those two hours, so thankful that they came up with a better design in later models but shouting into dead air my frustration at being stuck with this failure in mechanical engineering.

No matter how much I flattened the spring or bent the spring or cleared away at the rivet, it would just spin and spin, never catching. What eventually worked you ask? I have NO idea. It just decided to catch. I may have, in desperation, squeezed the end of the spring into such a tight circle no longer afraid if I was going to break it or not because I hated it so badly I wanted to replace it anyway, just to show it that I didn't need it

In fact, at this point, I still don't believe it's working and I messed with it for so long there's a part of me that feels like it's all going to come crashing down. Perhaps it was this frustration that led to the barrel becoming separated from the spindle and being rage-welded together in the first place! Well, my soldering job did its job, nothing broke loose or came dislodged during my rant in the basement. And so I was finally able to put the motor all back together and here it is, complete and as it was meant to be for the first time in who knows how long!

I made a couple of quick videos, one of the soldering (no, you don't have to see me struggle and wrestle with getting the springs to catch):
https://youtu.be/fpex3H8csFk

And one of it playing its first record after getting the speed calibrated. So happy to have my first working open horn phonograph! That little buzz you hear is coming from the governor brake I believe. The part encircled the governor and seems to rattle at certain frequencies. I'll have to look into that. The governor isn't totally correct but it's better than that Columbia styled one!
https://youtu.be/jrhCcYg-ACE

I've learned a lot doing this project, I think I'm ready to go to work on a basket-case or two, but even those never come up! I'll keep my eyes open.

Cheers everyone!

[paradroid1793]

I got a basket case Amberola 30 if you want!

[Dischoard]

Thanks for the offer, MI is a bit of a hike though and I've already got a project Amberola VI in the queue (nothing that needs quite this much attention mind you).

Cheers!