Columbia Portable Info Sought

[John Svensson]

It may take a day or so to load a picture or two....I live in "dial up" territory! Anyway, there is no identification of any kind on the soundbox. I finally gave it a winding last night and the motor seems to run tolerably well. The only fault I find in it is the tone arm meets increasing resistance as a record plays, leading to it staying in a groove and not advancing. Hopefully that is a lubrication issue? It seems that these have plated steel tone arms and not pot metal (thank the powers that be...). I live not too far from restorer Walt Somers so I may eventually take this to him for a quick "once over" of the mechanism. Will never be a brillant looking machine, but hopefully it will be a fully functional one. John

[John Svensson]

Resurrection! Of my old thread I mean......At long last I thought I would address the 'buzzing' eminating from the reproducer on this machine. So I took it off the tone arm, rubber gasket in relatively new and flexible shape, can see a dent near the center of the aluminum diaphragm when viewed from the back. I took off the four retaining screws from the faceplate/cover over the reproducer and it does not want to yield to any gentle presuure to come off. Is there a trick to this that I'm unaware of? The cover does not seem to be a part for which any corrosion (none apparent) or anything else would be an issue in removing it. I have the Complete Talking Machine book but I don't believe he addresses Columbia type viva-tonal reproducers specifically. Chisel? Crowbar? John