Other Victor locations besides Camden

[Jerry B.]

Does anyone have any comments about the cast Victor tone arms? I've always been curious. Jerry

[Guest]

[quote="gramophoneshane"][quote="Uncle Vanya"] The capital cost of much of this equipment was so great that even after the Gramophone Company was assembling its own model 32 and 34 motors, with frame castings, springs and governor weights manufactured at Hayes, the automatic screw parts were still imported from Camden. When RCA dsicontinued the prOduction of motor parts at Camden, Hayes turend t o other sources of supply, including Columbia and Garrard.[/quote]


Pardon my ignorance, but what are these automatic screw parts supplied by Victor, and what parts did the Hayes factory have to acquire from other sources including "Columbia & Garrard"?
UK Columbia never made their own motors, but had them supplied BY Garrard with the Columbia name on them, so why would HMV/GC be buying motor parts from a company that never made motors?
I've always thought the first Columbia/Garrard motors & parts to hit the floors of the Hayes factory were stocks obtained from Columbia with the EMI merger of 1931, but if not I'd be very interested in sighting the source of the above information.
I also thought HMV stopped using any American made Victor cabinets by about 1909/10, & started making their own Exhibition soundboxes in around 1911, and by the start of WWI they had also started making their own complete motors, eliminating the need to rely on Victor for anything, except for the designs used.[/quote]

Well Warner and Swayze supplied a considerable number of sophisticated Automatic Screw Machines Along with engineering support to the VTMC in 1905 qnd 1906.

The associated engineering notes describe maxhines for the rapifd manufacture of spiral gears. Another new, more sophisticated ("completely automatic") series of machinery was commissioned in 1912, at a cost of nearly eight hundred thousand dollars. These highly automated machines were almost unknown in Britain or on the Continent until after the War, perhaps owing to their very high cost, the lower wages of skilled labor, and the much smaller markets of the Old World.

Note that the United States Shipping Board was ordered to allot a considerable amount of scarce shipping tonnage to both "Talking Macine Sundries" and "Screw Products" with the Consignor being VTMC and the Consignee being the Gramophone Company.

I have been told that a considerable order of motor parts was manufactured for the British affiliate of Victor after the cessation of the production of these designs with the 1929 product line. After the creation of EMI, which happened to occur shortly after the machine shops at Camden were revamped for the production of other products, and the tooling for the manufacture of the old style motors was scrapped, EMI used Columbia motors in most new products, with the exception of models which appear to be made up of left-over parts.

When comparing contemporary Victor and HMV motors from the 'teens and the 'twenties it is obvious that although the frames are interchangable they are made in different plants bu different processes. Whilst the dimensions are identical, they differ in virtually every detail of fillet and finish. The winding gears too differ in finish, they appear to have been made by different processes, although they are generally similar in shape and pitch. The same is not true of the spindles and their associated gears, which appear as alike as peas in a pod, even to the minor tool marks.

I have been looking for good photographs of the machine shops at the Hayes works for years now. I wonder whether any exist.

[Uncle Vanya]

The capital cost of much of this equipment was so great that even after the Gramophone Company was assembling its own model 32 and 34 motors, with frame castings, springs and governor weights manufactured at Hayes, the automatic screw parts were still imported from Camden. When RCA dsicontinued the prOduction of motor parts at Camden, Hayes turend t o other sources of supply, including Columbia and Garrard.

Pardon my ignorance, but what are these automatic screw parts supplied by Victor, and what parts did the Hayes factory have to acquire from other sources including "Columbia & Garrard"?
UK Columbia never made their own motors, but had them supplied BY Garrard with the Columbia name on them, so why would HMV/GC be buying motor parts from a company that never made motors?
I've always thought the first Columbia/Garrard motors & parts to hit the floors of the Hayes factory were stocks obtained from Columbia with the EMI merger of 1931, but if not I'd be very interested in sighting the source of the above information.
I also thought HMV stopped using any American made Victor cabinets by about 1909/10, & started making their own Exhibition soundboxes in around 1911, and by the start of WWI they had also started making their own complete motors, eliminating the need to rely on Victor for anything, except for the designs used.

You have raised excellent questions, most of which I beleive have been addressd in a fairly extensive posting which I made without noticing that I was not signed in, and which is awaiting moderator apporval. As far as the use of Columbia and Garrard motors by "HMV", I must apologise for the lack of clarity in my earlier post. I was referring to the replacement of the model 32 and 34 motors by Columbia designs AFTER the creation of EMI.

[gramophoneshane]

I was referring to the replacement of the model 32 and 34 motors by Columbia designs AFTER the creation of EMI.

I'm not aware of any replacement motors for the 32 & 34 ever being made. These motors were still being used in the last of the non-portable (suitcase style) machines like the model 113 transportable, 179 table grand & 152 upright grand in 1940.
The only Columbia designs being used after the creation of EMI that Im aware of, were an automatic brake, and the No.23 soundbox used on cheap suitcase portables like the HMV 88 & 97.

[Uncle Vanya]

I was referring to the replacement of the model 32 and 34 motors by Columbia designs AFTER the creation of EMI.

I'm not aware of any replacement motors for the 32 & 34 ever being made. These motors were still being used in the last of the non-portable (suitcase style) machines like the model 113 transportable, 179 table grand & 152 upright grand in 1940.
The only Columbia designs being used after the creation of EMI that Im aware of, were an automatic brake, and the No.23 soundbox used on cheap suitcase portables like the HMV 88 & 97.

Well, I'm absolutely certain that you've had more experience with the late products of Hayes than have I. Over the past five years I've owned two machines, both small, adimttedly, which were not portables , were branded "His Master's Voice", and were fitted with what appear to be Garrard single-spring motors. Both machines had Model 23 reproducers, identical bifurcated Terne-Plate horns, and Columia style automatic brakes. One was a table grand and the other was a very small console, up on legs with a bit of record storage space. Both machines were fitted with Columbia style shutters over the horns. These machines, two model 32 gramophones, a 109 , and a 163' along with a 202 that I inspected more than twenty years ago, and a dozen model 32 and 34 motors are the total of my experience with the late products, aside from paper,which can be misleading if not carefully interpreted. The 202 as I recall had a motor that was much like the Garrard Super Motor that someone fitted As a replacement to a Gilbert that I once owned.

That said, it is really reasonable to question whether the Gramophone Company could justiify the heavy costs of the tooling necessary to manufacture all of their excellent motors, given their relatively small sales volume and the rather tenuous capitalization of the firm for much of the period under discussion, is it not? I would kill for photographs of the machine shop at Hayes, speaking purely figuratively, of course!

I have for many, many years made a fairly thorough study of the processes and tooling involved in the making of the motors under discussion here, and really wonder just what was goung on in Middlesex, particularly given the firm's shipping manifests during the War.

[Brad]

A little late to the party here I have been busy.

Below is a picture of the Victor factory in Oakland CA. By the looks of it the building is very new, and maybe not in service yet.

I believe that discs pressed there had an identifying mark in the run out area, however, I can't recall exactly what it was (I am sure someone will chime in).

Does anyone know if this building still stands and what is it's current use?

[Uncle Vanya]

An interesting question regarding the extent, if any, of the inclusion of Camden made components in the products of the Gramophone Company after the opening of their works at Hayes, Middlesex was posted on the forum operated by some of our British friends, over at " [link removed] ". My response was an amplification, and (I hope!) a clarification of the information that I posted in this thread some days past, to wit:

"Thirty years ago, whilst at University I was researcing the records of the Untied States Shipping Board, wartime entity that controlled the allocation of ALL shipping out of American ports in 1917, 1918, and 1919. I noted that considerable tonnage was allocated to consignments from the Victor Talking Machine Company to their British affiliate. Early consignments generally "Screw Machine Products" later ones' particularly those from early 1919, mention "Talking Machine Sundries". Both the American and British firms were heavily engaged in war production, with the Victor company building aircraft parts in their cabinet factory, rifle and cannon locks in their machine shop, and shell casings in their brass shop.

I understand that the Gramophone Company was engaged in war production to even a greater extent, and so the "Screw Machine Products" consigned to the British firm could well have munitions of a sort, but in most cases the varety of munitions was rather explixcitly identified in the Shipping Board records. I am not aware of the military use of "Talking Machine Sundries", however, and am pretty certain that "Talking Machine Sundries" shipped in March of 1919 would probably not be intended to be hurled through the air at the Huns.

Now, as for the specific tooling used to manufacture these parts at Victor, well, I worked for Warner and Swayze back in the early 1980's when they were clearing out their oriignal plant on East 55 th street in Cleveland, OH, my home town, and when we were disposing of their old engineering drawings and sales records I noticed and salvaged some of the information about these two sales to Victor. The technology to mass produce these spiral gears on automated machinery was pioneered by W & S back in the 'eighties, when they were building improved equipment for Cleveland Twist Drill. Due to the market leadership of Cleveland Twist Drill, Cleveland became a hotbed of screw machine design, with W&S, Lamson & Sessions, Bardons & Oliver, National Screw Products, Acme, Manufacturing, and other firms which supplied automatic screw macines ant turret lathes to the world in the decades before the Hitler War.

Note that the invoices for the machinery purchased by Victor to manufacture the improved motors of 1914 and the new "Burton" motors in 1917 approach a very large percentage of what I understand to the the total capitalization of the Gramophone Company at the time. Given the relatively small market served by the Gramophone Company, would it have been economic to invest large sums in equipment to produce parts which were cheaply avalable, easily imported, and subject to a negligable tarriff?

Have you any photographs of the machine shops at Hayes? The equipment necessary to produce these parts is pretty easily identifiable. Some of the machinery used in the automated production of these parts was purchased by the Ministry of Munitions in 1915 and 1916, and certainly could have made its way to Hayes during or after the War, but I also remember being told that in late 1930 or early 1931 RCA made a run of motors or motor parts for their Overseas affiliates before the motor manufacturing line at Camden was dismantled. this would have just about the time that the last Camden built motors were produced for the 2-65 and the final production of the T-90 and Other very late machines. That, of course is merely hearsay, and could well be an "old collector's tale", similar to, but less reliable than the proverbial "old wive's tale".


Now, as far as the Garrard motors are concerned, I am, of course, at a disadvantage, being a Yank. My reccollection of the only 202 that I've worked on was that it was fitted with something very much like the Garrard Super Motor shich someone fitted to a Gilbert gramophone which stood in my record room, and I've owned two very late HMV branded machines, both of which were fitted with bifurcated Terne Plate horns, HMV branded model 23 sound boxes, and Columbia style shutters over the horns. One of these machines was a table grand, and the other was a console. The console currently resides in Hirosaki, Japan, the table grand was destroyed in my late fire.

Did the models 52 and 53 use the number 32 motor? When did EMI discontinue the production of acoustic machines for home (as opposed to portable) use at Hayes? I always understood that the last new spring wound acoustic machine designed was the 153 , introduced in 1935. How long were these machines produced? what was the last new design that used the model 34 motor?"

Now, has anyone here in the 'states or over in the Old Country any information about this? The shipping orders are as found in the USSB files, but more concrete confirmation of late production for Hayes, and information about extant EMI era acoustic talking machines other than portables would be of tremendous help, I really believe that if we all pool our knowledge we can cast a little bit of light on an obscure bit of international industrial history.

[Starkton]

Hannover was a large plant, serving much of the Continent, until the Great War cut it off from London. St Petersburg and Milan had pressing plants rather early on.

The Gramophone & Typewriter Ltd. operated sales agencies in Milan and St. Petersburg early on, but never pressed records there. Instead, until 1908, Deutsche Grammophon AG erected pressing plants at Aussig (Czechoslovakia), Riga (Latvia), Paris and Barcelona. That year, the London-based Gramophone Co. Ltd. established another pressing plant at Sealdah, a suburb of Calcutta.