The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

With a brand new spring, this motor should run very strong, so there is definitely something amiss.

Remove the spring barrel. Spin the large gear by hand on the gear cluster, the one the spring would connect to. Give it a good spin, until the governor is spinning pretty good. Does all that assembly spin freely? If it slows down quickly, then there is excessive drag most commonly caused by the governor. Check the adjustment of the bushings on each end of the governor shaft. When those are tightened down, there should be just the tiniest bit of play in the shaft back and forth in the bushings. If you can see it moving back and forth, that's too much, but if you can feel it but not see it, that is good enough. Also, make sure the small end of the spring/weight assembly on the governor is secured to the shaft with a small screw in the brass end. That screw is between 2 of the spring screw holes.

If that is not the problem, then take the cylinder off the mandrel and lower the reproducer carriage. Does it go down far enough to rest on the slide bar along the front? If it 'hangs' above that slide bar, the half nut needs adjusting. There is an adjusting screw on the top of the half nut arm. The front end of the carriage should rest on the slide bar when it is in the down position. The screw should be adjusted so there is just enough pressure to drive the carriage. A bit of trial and error will get the right adjustment, where the half nut will drive the carriage without causing drag, slowing it down.

Good luck! Cliff

Thanks for all of the tips! I will work through each of these this week.

The gov shaft is new. I kade sure not to bend or distort the very small ends when installing it and made sure that it spun smoothly with no drag installed.

When I free spin the gear assembly without the spring motor it spins sloothly and quietly with no resistance really. You can see the gov weights pull away from the gov shaft smoothly and slowly come back in as teh machine slows down. it feels to me like everything mechanical underneath is working and it is something up top.

I did disassemble the ⅔ minute gearing and cleaned it. also oiled it like everything else. I think my next thing to look at is the half nut and the adjustment.

I did feel like the new bronze mandrel had more resistance than I would have expected. I will keep you all posted!