French Aerophone

[walser]

Merci Pierre! Thank you gramophone78! Your information is extremely useful for me.

Regarding the elbow design and the swivel that holds the arm, I have made some sketches using your design to try to explain how it works. I think that you can ask to the same guy who will do the elbow to turn in a lathe this pieces.

The problem is that after seeing the pictures that gramophone78 sent I'm not totally sure if I'm correct an I will have to wait till this weekend to prove it (I'm away from home till Friday night).

So, this is what I think the different pieces should go :

aerophone arm 2.png (24.81 KiB) Viewed 5608 times

The pieces taken apart should look this this.:

aerophone arm.png (11.22 KiB) Viewed 5608 times

Pierre: You already have the green, orange and blue pieces attached and as far as I can see they are identical to mine. I also see that your tube looks like its painted in gray. I bet that if you remove the paint you will see a faint AEROPHONE written near the base. You have to study how to restore the tube (the green part in the sketch)

Now comes the controversy. I have placed the red piece as drawn because my elbow had the opening of that side completely destroyed. I thought it should be attached to the elbow with some kind of metallic ring like the one in the pictures of gramophone78. Something like this (see the yellow part):

aerophone arm 3-1.png (23.81 KiB) Viewed 5608 times

And covered with some leather or rubber like this:

aerophone arm 3-2.png (24.89 KiB) Viewed 5608 times

But on gramophone78 pictures you can clearly see that the distance between the elbow and the arm is much shorter so I'm wondering if I have placed the red piece the wrong way and it should go like this:

aerophone arm 3-3.png (19.77 KiB) Viewed 5608 times

That will explain why I have two holes on the tube that attaches the reproducer to the arm. Somebody installed the red piece the whong way and the arm was too long so they added a second hole to be able to make it shorter.

This weekend I will dismantle the elbow and arm to measure if this option is possible..

A bientot!

Pedro

[gramophone78]

Pedro, I think it is very safe to say your arm (main body at least)is correct to your machine. The very fact it is stamped Aerophone confirms this. A question however, does your arm have a seam across the length like Pierre's..??.

If it does not, then it may not be a Paillard arm. However, not all Paillard arms have this seam. All Paillard arms I have seen have a thin coat of plaster inside. So, you may see remnants of plaster.

The object attached to the middle of the tone arm is unknown to me. I have never seen this on a Paillard made arm.
However, I would do far more investigative work on this before I ruled it out.. .

The other issue is the unknown. We do not know if this company used different arms during production.
From what I have seen, ever machine has a slightly different set up.

[walser]

That's a big surprise! A thin coat of plaster inside? I will have to check if there are some indices of it. I think I remember seeing a seam from the inside. It may be hidden from the outside because it looked like it was sanded at some point of its long existence.

The plaster recovering was for improving the sound?

And I have to try my luck today, I have one mystery to resolve on my gramophone. It came with this piece attached on the middle of the arm. My wild guess is that it was part of a some sort of support to hold the arm when not in use. The fact that the gramophone does not have any sort of pad or device to hold the reproducer when not in use reinforces my suspicion.

Can you confirm it? Maybe its a Paillard option?

Best regards and thank you in advance!

Pedro

[gramophone78]

Yes, I wrote...."plaster". It sounds crazy. It must have been Paillard's way of sound improvement. Maybe to eliminate the hollowness of the arm..???.
Who knows.
Here is the plaster.

Plaster In Tone Arm.JPG (87.35 KiB) Viewed 5604 times

[Papycoup]

Hi, Pedro,

I did not take a picture of the inside of the elbow...
I cannot have it back for the moment, BUT
I remember that the opening of the remaining pot metal inside the brass tube if softened (rounded) like the drawing here as if this was done to let the tone arm to move up and down.

Our modern technologies let us think to sophisticated designs... at the time those machines were made, the more simple they were, the easier the building was...

I guess you may have one part more than needed (???? and ?)

And I think that the slot on the tone arm ant the one on the elbow are there for decoration...

Rgds,

Pierre.

[walser]

It's really amazing the amount of information we are putting together

Pierre, are you sure that the elbow was so long as you are drawing it? I'm sure that my red piece is original because it fits really well with the blue one and they are made of the same alloy (bronze?)

Merci!

Pedro

[Papycoup]

I am sure of nothing...

Hi, Pedro,
you must be true, and it was my first thought when I saw your pictures !

How could your red part fitted in the main body of black part ?
Glue was not used at those vintage times... Can you see any trace of setting (sertissage) around the collar of your red part ?

I must wait a week to get back my part (I call it "elbow", but i don't know exactly how to call it in English !)
Then I show you by picture how it is really.

Have a good weekend,
I'll be back around Thursday...

Rgds,

Pierre

[walser]

Bonjour Pierre

No, I dont have any hint of how it was attached. That end part of the elbow was completely destroyed. The only thing I can assure is that the red part has the exact same diameter as the outside diametwr of that opening of the elbow.

A Bientot!

Pedro Martínez

[walser]

Hi all,

So, I was brave enough to disassemble again the arm to have look inside and prove its paternity

The verdict is... Its a Paillard!

There are clearly some traces of plaster inside and a seam all along it.

Traces of plaster and seam on both ends:

And in this picture you can clearly see the seam from the outside. It runs on the side (at 8 o'clock in aviation terms) instead of top or bottom as Wayne said:

I also measured and even tried to place the red part the other way around and its absolutely impossible to put it in this new way. So it looks like the way it was placed is the correct one.

One last thing, I found a tone arm that might help you restoring your one. Its a little bit thinner 34 mm at its widest point and 17 at is thinnest. I don't know if you can use part of this to restore your one. Somebody with a lathe might be able to cut the pieces cleanly and soft solder them.

Best regards,

Pedro

[gramophone78]

Hi all,

So, I was brave enough to disassemble again the arm to have look inside and prove its paternity

The verdict is... Its a Paillard!

There are clearly some traces of plaster inside and a seam all along it.

Traces of plaster and seam on both ends:

And in this picture you can clearly see the seam from the outside. It runs on the side (at 8 o'clock in aviation terms) instead of top or bottom as Wayne said:

I also measured and even tried to place the red part the other way around and its absolutely impossible to put it in this new way. So it looks like the way it was placed is the correct one.

One last thing, I found a tone arm that might help you restoring your one. Its a little bit thinner 34 mm at its widest point and 17 at is thinnest. I don't know if you can use part of this to restore your one. Somebody with a lathe might be able to cut the pieces cleanly and soft solder them.

Best regards,
Pedro

Pedro & Pierre,
I have three spare Paillard tone arms here in my parts. One still has plaster inside and the other have lost most of it. The one arm is very usually. It would have been for "lateral" records only and is (I believe) of their own design. Not at all like the early "swan neck" they offered like Victor.

I should also point out that Paillard attached these arms by use of a pivoting screw & nut on each side of the arm. Only their swan neck was supported by a spring loaded rod and set screw (like Victor). So, I'm not sure how the arms were adapted to fit the Aerophone bracket since the elbow part of the arm has the special volume control device..??. Maybe, they were specially made for the Aerophone maker by Paillard

Paillard Tone Arm Screw And Nut.JPG (50.59 KiB) Viewed 5568 times

Also, here is a better pic of both the "duplex" & "swan neck" tone arms made by Paillard.