Number of Ball Bearings in a VV2-55 Arm Race?

[Lah Ca]

I bought 3D printed new back brackets for a VV 2-60 and 2-55 machines off eBay.

Interesting. I will have to investigate this option. Are the brackets metal or plastic? Do you have a link for the EBay vendor?

Yeah... I also bought a second VV 2-55 and hopefully the record holder part stays attached during transit, and won't have the same incident involving the first one. I plan to just combine parts with the one I already have to make one good machine outta both.

This is my plan also.

My second machine is quite different from my first in many ways. The second was carefully hand assembled. Everything, including the upper half of the case, can be disassembled with a screwdriver (and of course other tools when the motor is considered). The machine was made to be serviced/repaired. Problems with the record holder can be addressed easily by removing the top half of the case. My first machine is comparatively junky--much poorer build and finish quality, sloppy workmanship, lots of rivets used to speed up production. Here I cannot get at the record holder without drilling out the 500 lid rivets of Bartholomew Cubbins. I would have to check the serial numbers to be certain, but I do suspect that my second machine is the (much) earlier of the two.

I had a good look at another VV2-55, a battered train wreck of a machine, a couple of months back. Much about this machine was also different, and it also had a comparatively shoddy build quality. The construction of the arm's ball race assembly was different from those of my two machines, which are quite similar if not identical in this area. And again so much of the machine was riveted together.

[Lah Ca]

Most interesting .....

In my second and probably older VV2-55, there is a very thin ring of felt under the ball bearing spacer in the ball race cup. I may have damaged it slightly, not knowing it was there, while trying to clean out the old grease. But it seems to be intact enough so that I can probably put it back in.

My first machine most definitely did not have this feature.

What purpose would this ring serve? I can only assume noise dampening. Embedded with grease, it would keep the spacer in place, preventing the generation of any mechanical noise that might be caused by its movement if it were free. Only a guess, though.

I will post a pic once the ring is out of the solvent bath.

[JerryVan]

Most interesting .....

In my second and probably older VV2-55, there is a very thin ring of felt under the ball bearing spacer in the ball race cup. I may have damaged it slightly, not knowing it was there, while trying to clean out the old grease. But it seems to be intact enough so that I can probably put it back in.

My first machine most definitely did not have this feature.

What purpose would this ring serve? I can only assume noise dampening. Embedded with grease, it would keep the spacer in place, preventing the generation of any mechanical noise that might be caused by its movement if it were free. Only a guess, though.

I will post a pic once the ring is out of the solvent bath.

The felt ring was most likely intended to be used as a gasket between the base of the tone arm mount and the motor board. With the felt placed under the bearing separator, do the bearings then ride on the felt?

[Lah Ca]

The felt ring was most likely intended to be used as a gasket between the base of the tone arm mount and the motor board.

No. There is the standard cork gasket there.

With the felt placed under the bearing separator, do the bearings then ride on the felt?

I don't know. The felt was definitely under the bearing spacer. I think I can see impressions through the felt where ball bearings might have been, but there were no bearings left in the ball race here. The arm support had been broken for a very long time I think, and the bearings probably got knocked loose and fell out.

The picture isn't so good here below. It was taken at an angle so things look out of round. Also the spacer looks dark, which it isn't. The picture was taken in poor light in my garage.

[JerryVan]

If it were mine, I'd omit the felt washer. It can only serve to impede the free rolling of the bearings.

[Lah Ca]

My attempt at colour matching ....

I couldn't quite get enough orange/copper colour into the gold/bronze, and I don't know how to get the wrinkled effect in the paint. But here is my best effort:

I used the closest coloured metallic gold/bronze I could find for the thin first and third coats. The for the second and fourth very light coats, I used a dark (blackish) hammered bronze, lightly splattering the parts from a distance.

[VictrolaGuy - Walt]

Google VHT Wrinkle Plus

[Lah Ca]

Google VHT Wrinkle Plus

Interesting. Thanks.

I will fill this bit of information away.

The only colours available in the VTH Wrinkle Plus paint here seem to be red and black.

If I were to try this again, I would apply a base coat of the red to get a good wrinkle and then lightly spray with the different coloured gold/bronzes.

[Jim_Cannon]

I have used the red wrinkle paint on other applications and it is a real pain to work with. You must put down a base color first, because the wrinkle paint is very translucent. You need to get the paint thickness exactly the same everywhere to get the same wrinkle height all over. Hard to do. I stripped it off and went with a solid, smooth gloss red. It looks much better.

My VV 2-55 came to me all in an original "British Racing Green" color. It looks really good with the gold hardware. I think I posted a few pictures of it previously. I will gladly post some again, if anyone would like to see them. I can see, in places where use of the phonograph has rubbed through some of the paint (patina), that they used a classic red primer under the green. I have left it all original. I just cleaned it and waxed it with some original green automotive Turtle Wax.

[Dischoard]

My attempt at colour matching ....

I couldn't quite get enough orange/copper colour into the gold/bronze, and I don't know how to get the wrinkled effect in the paint. But here is my best effort:

armbase1.jpg

armbase2.jpg

I used the closest coloured metallic gold/bronze I could find for the thin first and third coats. The for the second and fourth very light coats, I used a dark (blackish) hammered bronze, lightly splattering the parts from a distance.

And you were able to get those back brackets separated from the tonearms without incident?