The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

The governor weights for your machine should be rounded. It almost looks to me as if you have three different weights! The one that appears to be homemade is very similar to an earlier Columbia weight. I'd get in touch with George Vollema (google Great Lakes Antique Phonographs) and get a proper set of weights AND three new governor springs for starters. That will probably solve your problem once you have them installed and properly balance the governor springs, which is easy. Once you have the weights and springs installed and tight, loosen the same side on each spring slightly (half a turn), wind the motor up and let it run for a minute or so, shut the motor off and re-tighten the screws, this should balance the governor.

That's a start.

Good luck!
Sean

I guess the issue with silver is that unless you coat it with something it will rapidly tarnish, so will not look right for long without regular polishing.

Clay

I've used a product very similar to this when building scale models. The product is from Japan called
'Kosutte-Ginsan' and I believe it comes in several different finishes. The problem that I've experienced
is that the finish slowly rubs off when handled and can sometimes be seen on your fingers if you handle the
finished part often. The only way to prevent this is to clear coat it but the clear coat dulls the finish to the
point where you would have been better off painting it with spray paint.

Please keep us posted as to how the product holds up to everyday use.

Ok, all parts are "plated" now. It's a qualified success. First of all, it does seem like an actual plating process and the silver is bonded to the brass. I know this because I had to do the tone arm over again and I ground all the silver off with a buffing wheel. It took some doing. Yes, the longevity is unknown but it really does seem like a plating process rather than a coating. But it's thin just like the technical data said. So thin that whatever it looked like before the plating it will look exactly like after -- except now it's silver rather than brass-colored. But every bit of unevenness or scratches or porosity in the original is present and will not polish out. Imagine taking a color photo of your hand and then printing it in black and white. Different color, same beat up old hand. To best describe it, I think someone seeing the tonearm and horn base would think, "Wow, that's still in pretty good shape," rather than thinking that someone put a bunch of effort into making it look like that. Of course I know how crappy it looked to begin with so I see a big improvement.

To deal with the inevitable tarnishing I put a coat of wax on it, which may or may not have any effect. I'll keep you posted. I can always rub another coat of Medallion on, which removes tarnish and adds silver wherever there's another metal showing. One of the rules of preservation is "do no harm" and I believe anything I did is entirely reversible if needed. Someday if I get good at plating I can plate over it. This is good enough for now.

Wow, looks great!

If you have to remove it with heavy buffing then it's nothing like Kosutte-Ginsan.
If I ever get around to doing some home plating myself (which i really want to do) I'll post
my experience with it.

I have used Caswell's Silversmith on brass and copper parts. It leaves a coating of silver on the part. I plated some Victor parts back in 1998, and no tarnish, yet. It looks like dull, old nickel. It's expensive, but well worth the price.
Harvey Kravitz

I rebuilt the reproducer, replaced the governor, and greased everything up. Here's the "After" video. You can compare to the "Before" video posted in the first posting of this chain. Amazing difference in sound and volume. http://youtu.be/nyuiU0dunvQ

Quite a difference!

Clay

Here's another YouTube video on the subject.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-PtnwtOR24

Anyone delve into this ?

JeffR1 wrote: Wed Oct 20, 2021 4:28 pm Here's another YouTube video on the subject.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-PtnwtOR24

Anyone delve into this ?

Wow ! This looks amazing. I assume it isn't dangerous or anything ?

I have just the gramophone to try this on - thanks for showing the link.