The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

audioengr wrote:I plan to cut one of the 25 pound lead bricks I have into smaller pieces and put two into the bottom of my Victor II. I will report back on the result. I already have dampening material glued to the top of the box, under the turntable, since the lid is only rigidly attached at the hinges on the back.

I wonder how your dampening experiments are going and if a comparison, with and without dampening weights, has delivered an improvement or deterioration in sound quality.

Daithi wrote:

audioengr wrote:I plan to cut one of the 25 pound lead bricks I have into smaller pieces and put two into the bottom of my Victor II. I will report back on the result. I already have dampening material glued to the top of the box, under the turntable, since the lid is only rigidly attached at the hinges on the back.

I wonder how your dampening experiments are going and if a comparison, with and without dampening weights, has delivered an improvement or deterioration in sound quality.

It's taking me a while in my spare time to cut through the lead manually. I'll try to get it done today.

audioengr wrote:
It's taking me a while in my spare time to cut through the lead manually. I'll try to get it done today.

Try a cleaver and hit the back of the cleaver with a lump hammer to drive it through the lead. You get a clean cut with no shavings or swarf that way if you can drive it all the way through. I have seen steel bolts cut with a sharp knife that way by multiple taps on the back of the knife with a hammer.

audioengr wrote:It's taking me a while in my spare time to cut through the lead manually...

I hope you are being careful with OHS working with lead - it's an unhealthy metal, and lead poisoning is not a good thing to get (symptoms can appear over a long time).

I hope you're careful picking up the Victor II with all that lead in the bottom of it--these boxes don't strengthen with age really!

My Brunswick Cortez developed and interesting resonance-sort of a constant ringing/howling anytime the turntable was in motion. It also slowed down a bit.

I took the motor out, lubed it, lubed the two governor pads, but it back together and it started making the same noise almost immediately.

I took the motor out again and examined the governor pads. The part of the pads that contacted the governor (which is not a disc, but almost like a bell, and apparently was acting like a very small horn) were burnished and hard where they contact the governor. I filed them slightly to get to a softer part of the material, the lubricated them again.

This time, when I put it back together, it was silent again, and has been since I did this (about six months ago, as nearly as I can remember).