The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Yes my friction disk is indeed warped. I have a small jewelers lathe i will try to true it up. I wonder how so many of these got warped over the years, I cant imagine them being sold this way. Then again, maybe they were. It seems odd to have worn unevenly from use but i suppose its possible.

I've fixed a couple of warped discs simply by carefully clamping them in a vise several times, working my way around the entire circumference. No guarantees, but it worked for me in about 5-10 minutes.

George P.

I went out and machined it until the wobble came out. It plays absolutely perfect now, Thank you for that suggestion, that disk would've been one of the last things I checked. Waiting on the decals, and this baby's done!

Glad you located the trouble! So often it's in the governor...

George P.

It is kind of odd; the cause of the friction disc problem. They sit for years with the on and off lever in the same spot, or turning them off with too much pressure warps the disc.

gwcoty wrote:Yes my friction disk is indeed warped.

gwcoty wrote:I went out and machined it until the wobble came out. It plays absolutely perfect now, Thank you for that suggestion, that disk would've been one of the last things I checked.

Good to hear that you removed the flutter! As Shawn mentioned above, it's not surprising that some friction discs can get slightly warped from all the stop and start use over the years as well as other types of usage they sustain especially since many are brass or aluminum. And, honestly, it would not surprise me at all to realize that some friction discs were not perfectly 'true' even when new considering how many of these were made.

I hope that others who own cylinder phonographs that play with the annoying flutter will find some help in all of the suggestions that have been provided in this post!

Personally, I will be forever indebted to Bob Barnett here on the Forum (barnettrp21122) for helping me with my Edison Operas years ago when I had an annoying flutter on each of them. I was pretty confident that the flutter problem in this instance was with the flywheel wire that was inserted through both the flywheel and the mandrel shaft but I could not find the appropriate replacement wire to use. Bob was gracious enough to send me several small sections of spring wire that worked for him and informed me that the best ones he found to remove the Opera flutter were Ernie Ball 18P guitar strings!! Next day I went to my local Guitar Center and bought one of these Ernie Ball guitar strings, cut it to perfect size for the Opera flywheel and VOILA!! No more flutter on either of my Edison Operas!! Anyway, again, I'm pleased to hear that you removed that annoying flutter.

Doug