The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I've seen stripes from soda cans a governor springs and screws to hold broken springs together. The biggest pain to remove though are repairs of crumbled orthophonic tonearm mounts done with copious amounts of JB-Weld or similar, leaving a big glob that could only be removed by carefully chiseling it away piece by piece. Sorry, don't have pictures.

Andreas

It is possible that Sonora had a Magnavox modification done to it. A four button microphone was installed in the Sonora tone arm to receive the vibrations from the diaphragm. The microphone had enough output to drive a horn speaker. This would have been the earliest form of electrically amplified phonograph, as the patent for this system was approved in 1920. The control on the side of your Sonora may have been the gain control for the volume. See the two pictures below.

While a don't have photos, I'm always amused at the the number of different things people use as cranks. Meat grinder cranks are one of my favorites. A Victor II I got years ago had a bent-up piece of rod welded to the winding shaft. Because it couldn't be removed, a slot was cut in the cabinet for the rod to pass through as the lid was opened and closed. Also seen hex head bolts that are wound with socket wrenches.

A trick of my dad's, before reproductions were available, was to form Orthophonic tone arm mounts out of a piece of automotive exhaust pipe. That seems crude, but dad was a real craftsman and he cut & beat the metal to the correct shape. You wouldn't notice it at a glance. In fact, a current forum member has a Credenza that I sold him, with just such a bracket. (Isn't that right M.B.?)

Sometimes you have to scratch your head at what these people do. I picked up a Columbia Grafanola Deluxe the phonograph only version over the weekend at a good price only to find out once I laid my hands on the machine that there were extra holes in the side and they were thoughtful enough to put a replacement Columbia motor in the machine and move the tone arm too. How grateful I was to find this repair. What a bunch of work I’m gonna have to do to correct it.

Wes

I repaired a machine last year that that had a broken inner end of a mainspring. To repair it, molten lead was poured into the center coil to solder it all together. It was a fun job getting that one apart to do a proper repair.
Dave D

I had a Victrola VV-IV that someone replaced a governor weight with a modified fishing sinker. I replaced it with the correct weight and the motor ran much better, but I kept the old sinker to put on one of my shelves with other little vintage trinkets.

Interesting thread... Machines needing repair when they were being used by original owners would be relatively easy. Parts were available and the skillset of repairmen was generally known. But once the machines were obsolete and into first generation collector interest, parts were really difficult to locate. Donor parts machines were the likely source. I listened to several of my minor collector friends say the only reason to buy a Victrola was for its parts. They were mainly talking about table model X, XI, and XII as well as the early XIV and "L" door Victrola. Those are all machines sold in limited numbers during the infancy of Victrola production and all are models prized by collector today. The Victor rear mount elbow is an interesting part to consider. If you needed an elbow for a Victor III you were in trouble. Nothing from a Victrola would work. The first reproduction elbows were offered by Karl Frick. They worked but the part was an obvious modification of a plumbing part. You ran the risk of remarks from other collectors about owning a Frick-O-Phone. Next came the bulky aluminum elbows. They looks reasonably good and were functional. I personally remember being delighted that they were available. Now we have accurate reproduction elbows that are difficult to tell from originals. Todays collectors enjoy the availability of high quality reproduction parts.

Jerry Blais

This guy does a really good job making DIY parts for his Victor Type C.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAaqvI7dwJg

I was recently gifted this Columbia grafanola C-2. It appears to have undergone some at home modifications

The motor board has been replaced with a new board (which was made pretty well I’d say). But the thing that I can’t figure out is the on/off switch and the speed control. Was the original speed control modified into the on/off switch and then a new speed control was made? I’ll attach a picture of a correct grafanola on/off switch for reference. Also with the lid support, are square headed screws correct for this machine? It seems odd..

Whoever did it also put for horribly wrong screws in the wood

Both of those on/off - speed control plates are legit - just different periods. I'm not enough of an expert to date them, but Columbia did more changes and modifications over time than Victor.