The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

If you have any older brass plates in bad shape, I would buff them down to shiny brass, shoot a couple coats of black lacquer, let dry a few days, buff down the high spots, (Actually I use a piece of glass with polishing compound).

Now get yourself a cheap plating setup for about $25. from Texas Platers, Make sure to get copper plating solution along with brass & nickel. You can use this for many other small plating projects.

Very easy setup and works great. Try plating copper on the high spots on the prepared plate and if your happy with the results, go for it with you Vic 6..

I would also put clear coat over everything when your satified. If it looks too new, scratch it up with some steel wool before you clear coat it. You can also buy different toner sprays to slightly adjust the final color to your liking.

blizz

been there done that....

This thread peaked my curiosity, so I went over to have a close look at the pretty pristine data plate on my VV-XVI, fully expecting to find it gold plated. It isn't! It is either copper or copper plated or a darn good imitation. And it has the distinctive reddish hue of copper, not an orange as in orange shellac, albeit it would have to be coated with something to inhibit tarnish.

Clay

Orthophonic wrote:I think that these plates were of brass; the copper color is apparently due to the color of the shellac or varnish or lacquer used to coat them. The silver colored ones were simply made of aluminum; the gold ones were, of course were gold plated.

The silver plates were definitely made of brass with a matte silver coating…

Bill

I haven't seen but one actual silver colored plate, but the ones on a Colony, and similar machines are definitely aluminum; I have aluminum plates for a vv-iv, a vv-90, a vv-xiv, and a vv-ix. There is a silver colored plate for a vv-x that is brass on the back, one thin brass vv-iv plate and two very thick brass plates for a vv-x and a vv-ix. It seems that aluminum plates were used on less expensive machines; for special ones possibly plates were of other colors and materials. The 10-50s and the 9-40 have gold plates in them but I am pretty sure they are plated.