The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

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Record spins clockwise, soundbox and needle should be at approximately 60 degree angle in relation to the record with the point of that angle in the same direction that the record travels. Also soundbox and arm should be placed to the right of the spindle on the outside edge of the record. (assuming its a normal record!)

alang wrote:I would be careful with vinegar. Vinegar is made from wine, which contains alcohol. As we all know, alcohol dissolves shellac. Maybe there is a difference and it's safe, but I would not risk it myself.

Andreas

I doubt that there is any alcohol content in white vinegar (the kind sold in supermarkets, used for pickling and also various household cleaning chores). If there were, we would surely have to purchase it in the state store here in Pennsylvania, where the Prohibition-era blue laws dictate just about everything having to do with sales of alcohol!

Henry wrote:

alang wrote:I would be careful with vinegar. Vinegar is made from wine, which contains alcohol. As we all know, alcohol dissolves shellac. Maybe there is a difference and it's safe, but I would not risk it myself.

Andreas

I doubt that there is any alcohol content in white vinegar (the kind sold in supermarkets, used for pickling and also various household cleaning chores). If there were, we would surely have to purchase it in the state store here in Pennsylvania, where the Prohibition-era blue laws dictate just about everything having to do with sales of alcohol!

Common white vinegar is fermented from ethanol derived from a variety of sources, but often from Corn - so no wine is involved. The fermentation process renders it non-alcoholic. It is just a diluted mild acid.

Try vinegar sometime. It works very well. I heard about using white vinegar from Mark Obert-Thorne. That is what he uses.

Oceangoer1 wrote:I have heard of cleaning records with vinegar from many sources. Do you think it will kill mold? I have a few 78's that were inside the moldiest, most foul-smelling phonograph on this planet. They have some white spots on them and even the records smell awful!

Stops mold dead in its tracks. However a severe mold growth on a record is going to leave behind pits where the mold ate away the shellac. Nothing you can do about the damage mold causes, just get rid of the mold itself.

One thing newbie collectors need to realize is that a number of experts have spent many hours putting together excellent books on this hobby that were not available 30 or 40 years ago. We have a generation of people who think they can get all the knowledge they need free on the internet.

Spend some cash and buy some books.

Big break through on sound quality. De Soto Frank posted that cleaning and tightening the needle-bar could make a big difference. WOW. Massive difference. Here is the post with the good / bad news: http://forum.talkingmachine.info/viewto ... =2&t=22596

Also found the dirtiest record in Austin, Texas and cleaned with vinegar. It worked great but I now realize that I didn’t have a control record to see if it damaged it. I am still collecting pictures and I will post it all this weekend.

I will update the 10 things this weekend. My Grafonola (minus the one nut) is really starting to sound great and it looks really good!

PS, you have to be careful when you ask the shop owners where they keep their dirty records. They either kick you out or point you to a completely different kind of dirty Just kidding.

That is a great tip on buying books! Seems obvious now that you said it

I'm a big Half Price Book fan. At least in Austin you can find some really hard to find books. Of course there is Amazon, but what fun would that be. That would be like downloading the MP3

Heading there tomorrow!

I'm going to add "Make sure the governor is set correctly so you don't think your new machine is busted"

I don't really know if I would say to a beginner that the mainspring has to be greased if it thumps. It's a quite complicated task (usually the last you learn to do by yourself) and it's also a dangerous one. Perhaps I'd simply say that "it needs to be rehauled by an expert". Instead, I would rather stress the fact that the motor gears and especially the governor disc + pad assembly need to be oiled well. That's something everybody can do.

Also, I'd stress out that records are not all equal. There are 78 RPMs (and those are the ones we want) as there are 33s and 45s (and we really don't want to play those on a gramophone). It may sound silly at first but you'll be amazed when you will realize how many people enthusiastically purchase a gramophone without knowing absolutely nothing about records' technology. And with nothing I mean N O T H I N G. They indistinctly call them "vinyls" (a word used by no one when 33 RPMs ruled, by the way) and think they're all the same stuff.

Just an example: lately, I have read a book about Italian Jazz' history ("Sincopato Tricolore" by Guido Michelone) supposed of course to be written by an expert - or an enthusiast at least - of the subject. Well, while mentioning the first Jazz recording ever, the author, with the only purpose of not repeating the words "record" or "78 RPM" too often, calls it "microgroove" (SIC!!!). This tells us that, nowadays, even jazz experts may have never seen a record and may ignore the basics of recording technology. I still believe that Mr. Michelone's jazz culture is vast, but I suppose it is all based on CD reissues or on Mp3s. Which is not a fault, obviously, but is nonetheless a huge limit that exposes him to unbelievable boners like the above.

And he's a music expert. Go figure the beginners.