columbia grafonola reproducer arm sticking

[fcbclan]

columbia grafonola reproducer arm sticking what do I do? clean and lubricate, and what do I lube it with. seems to be scratching records how do I know what ones to play and what needle do I use , three needles were in the little cups. Thanks God Bless

[alang]

Columbia used potmetal for their tonearms, which unfortunately often swells and even cracks and crumbles after 100 years in storage. In theory all the different parts of the tonearm can be disassembled, but often that leads to cracking or breaking if they are already stuck. Now the questions is, where is it stuck and does it still move? If the elbow is stuck in the base, but still moves you may be able to lubricate it, disassemble and then carefully remove some of the excess metal with sandpaper or similar. I had the best experience with Liquid Wrench dry silicone spray, because when it dries it leaves a dry lubricating residue. I'd soak it in the stuff and then let dry over night, that resolved my issue.
If the parts are totally frozen together but haven't cracked yet you can try to put it into a plastic bag and into the freezer at least over night and then carefully try to make it move and disassemble. If it's still stuck, soak again, freezer again, etc. This may take several runs and several days, so be patient. If you use too much force and it breaks there is no way of fixing it, you'll have to spend quite some money to get a spare.
Now with the tonearm and elbow it's a but different, because the walls are much thinner, so they break more easily. In essence you use the same techniques like soaking with liquid wrench and carefully making it move again. If it's totally frozen you can try the freezer method, but chances are that you won't be able to make it workable again without disassembly. In that case I would rather send it to one the the phonograph repair shops listed in the LINKS section.
Do not use WD40 as lubricant, in my experience it made the problem worse. Thin silicone or teflon based solutions work best in my experience.

Good Luck!
Andreas