The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Since a Victrola VV-VI is an inexpensive machine and quite common, why not make a glass case and turntable to fit that machine? It would be cool to have a transparent case...

I spoke with Tim this afternoon. At first he claimed to not recognize me, but eventually I was able to extract an estimate of 1" for the motorboard and ½" for the platter. He'll give me actuals when he gets home.

Having worked on two of these in my life, they make excellent display queens. Pot metal convertible tone arm. Quirky baseball sized phono motor (made in Rochester, NY, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!). Belt driven as well. Fragile as a wine glass, and heavy as a rusty Dodge Omni, and acoustically.....”meh.”

MANY OF THEM EXIST. So many, in fact that one can actually be found reasonably.

VanEpsFan1914 wrote:I think if a good acoustic phonograph went back on the market, more people than collectors would buy it. The hipster set, the audiophool set, the decorator set, folks tired of digital--everyone would do it. If there was something like a VV-IV with No. 4 then the off grid set would snap it up.

If the market was that hungry for acoustic phonographs, we wouldn't collectively have warehouses of unsaleable VV-X, VV-XI, etc. sitting around. It's a niche market and it always will be. "Hipsters" and "audiophiles" are buying vinyl, and decorators are buying shiny junk (unless the client has a lot of money, in which case they will buy a genuine machine). The amount of time, money, and expertise it would take to make something as high quality as say a Victor or an Edison would be unfathomable today with no return on investment. The truth is, there are more original machines out there than there are buyers.

I agree. There are (unfortunately) way more common phonographs on the market then could ever be sold. With the increasing age of the first generation of collectors more and more of the rarer machines are starting to compete for the limited number of buyers as well. The only reason to build a new phonograph might be to create that one unique piece that never existed, just for the fun of it. Something like a nice fancy tabletop with a late Victor four spring motor, an external wood horn and orthophonic tonearm and reproducer. But that would be kind of a Frankenphone for personal use, nothing commercially viable.

Andreas

As usual, the thread has evolved into something away from the original topic. That’s fine, and I had a lot to do with that by proposing my little fantasy Kurtzmann imitation.

When I was talking to Tim about it yesterday, and I described my little fun project, his response was to say “well, after you’re done, what do you have?”

And I guess that goes to the root of it. You had fun, and then you have a nice toy, and the whole thing was basically about personal amusement.

At the end of the day, isn’t that really what this hobby is? A bunch of people playing with toys - albeit sophisticated and sometimes expensive and probably a bit more historically significant than LEGO or Barbie.

And toys are fun!

I do have a little bit of a thought about my own project though. I think we all despise the current so-called steam punk approach of dismantling and “repurposing” existing complete vintage items, in order to make fun looking hodgepodges of old parts into new art pieces. In a way, me using the components from various things that I described above is akin to that, with the only difference being that my parts were already separated or dismantled from otherwise unusable items, and that the end product will be something that has the same original function as the components used. In other words, I’m not putting a lightbulb in a parabolic space heater and calling it a lamp.

Anyway, hey Wyatt, if you say these things are out there to be had, can you help me find one? And also, since if they are as terrible as you described, in a way my fake one might be an improvement! I’m probably going to use a Victor electric motor, for example. And no belt drive. And other components that are not pot metal…

I too love the looks of this machine. There is a company here in Arizona that works with glass and they are amazing. They do all types of glass specialty work. They can cut, bevel, etch almost any type and thickness of glass. Once i saw that machine I started to think about it. Any arm, Victor, Edison etc could be used. At one point I saw an ad for the company that made the motors, but now I cannot lay my hands on the image. You could use smoked glass, that would really be sharp and etch designs in it.

A Victor motor, like the one in the RE-45 could be used. Parts could be dressed up by polishing, plating or with paint. Even the motor coils could be made to look good.

There is guy here that with a plasma cutter is an artist-he would love to take on this kind of project.

Some really good dimensions, and a series of photos could get us started. Forget about making money-let's just build a few of the suckers!
Abe

That's a neat idea. It would be cool to see new mechanical parts made (to avoid dismantling an original/using up the parts reserves) but old parts would give it a definite cool factor. You could probably do it cheap, too: if you had a plating outfit you could use old parts with the plating gone and make them over again any color you wanted.

The motor--perhaps a modern electric motor would work, but the 1910s and 1920s motors have a definite cool factor with the spinning gears and governors. (I actually like the overcomplicated belt drives of the old Kurtzmann motor.)

Whatever happens it'll be really cool.

Thick glass like that can also be obtained from large aquariums. Sometimes people give them awy in local calssifieds. How would you cut glass that thick though?

Just found this link to YouTube of one in action.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q96gqa2Ds9w