The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Hi McTree, welcome to the forum:)
I wanted to give a short reply, since no one else yet has replied to your questions.
It is great by the way that you have uploaded some photos of your machine, it is always helpful!
I have myself serviced around 10 HMV portables the last year, in my first year of restoring, but Rexine repair on air bubbles, is the only work I still not have done on the portables needing this fix. I am still in the process of acquiring a hypodermic syringe, suggested by Phono48 (Barry) in this same thread. I actually have a HMV 101 front wind that will be given this exact treatment, but I am still not there quite yet. Due to a recent surgery in my arm, I need about 3-4 weeks before I can start this particular restoration work. If you don't get any more feedbacks from other forum members who have worked on the Rexine on this particular HMV model, I will return to the thread when being ready to work on my own machine. I have quite some HMV portables, so I will be happy to function as a "guinea pig" on this project. ( I don't really know right here and then if the Rexine quality and texture is different on the front wind 101 than on later side wind 101 portables, and since the front wind 101 is in my garage room in the neighbour town I cant really check it right now)

Thank you, there is a lot of interesting information on this forum for sure! I hope you can soon resume the restoration work on your own machines and maybe you can show some pictures, I really like seeing how people doing this sort of thing. I saw the post about the syringe but to me it looks like these bubbles on my machine are too big to be repaired with a syringe. Being an impatient newbe, I just couldn't wait so last night I removed the lid and dismantled it to see if I could get under the rexine. The left hand side of the lid was in poor condition and at the same time is the smallest surface that needed repair so I think that would be the safest place to experiment on. Replacing that side only with new rexine will look odd I think. And recovering the entire case would sound like something really fun to do, but I am not sure that would be wise.
As I expected, the rexin was quite worn and completely loose. It looks like it is linen backed. The inside of the lid has a different much finer pattern, the outside looks like the typical Morocco pattern. There were some handwritten markings inside the lid, maybe from the factory? The rexine pattern on the actual bubbles looks quite worn. I will now try to glue it back bit by bit, wish me luck...