The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I kind of think that you're going to find one spring completely missing. Let's take it apart and see

You may be right. Starting to get it apart. They certainly made these easier to get in to as time went on. Have to literally use a gear puller and a youth Louisville Slugger to get the barrels open. So far the first spring looks pretty darn good which is a bummer because that means I have to dive deeper… which I was going to anyway

I wish it were a missing spring, I think the whole arbor might be bad? I don’t think it’s supposed to look like this:

Someone please tell me there’s something salvageable here. How doomed am I?
It also looks like the gear is fairly worn, can this gear be flipped around?
Wow. Never felt such a sinking feeling as when I separated these barrels… how much better would it have been if there had only been a broken/missing spring?

So I think this is the right arbor, it's just that piece is supposed to be attached to the upper spring barrel and must have come apart? If that's the case, why wouldn't they have tack-welded those parts together instead of the stupid globbie nail thing?! Must have been a local repair person who had this to fix a spring (and governor?), put it together and just clobbered it. The customer was probably unhappy and sent it back. This probably made the repair guy frustrated and so they just welded crap together. There, "fixed".

So is this fiixable or should I have just left it?

Well... the good news is, there are 2 springs.

There's a lot going on there. Might be best to advertise for both spring barrels. You're correct, the gear doesn't look great either. The stud is broken off of the barrel as you surmise.

JerryVan wrote: Fri Jul 26, 2024 4:39 pm Well... the good news is, there are 2 springs.

There's a lot going on there. Might be best to advertise for both spring barrels. You're correct, the gear doesn't look great either. The stud is broken off of the barrel as you surmise.

Yeah. What happens when I get really down is I rally and become really determined. I have a friend who works in metal, maybe he has a good idea for re-attaching these two pieces. I may also be able to use some sort of epoxy to connect these two, very well fitting pieces together. Maybe filling in that little missing piece with some JB Weld and then reshaping it is all it may need.
In the meantime I cleaned off that horrible weld using my bench grinder, then a Dremel, and finally a quick coat of paint over the bare metal:

You could also run a machine screw through the spring and attach it with a nut on the outside of spring barrel. You can then grind the nut down so it doesn’t look so obtrusive and will clear anything that’s in the way

That actually looks a lot more promising than I thought. If your metal working friend can braze the stud back on it should be okay. Avoid any kind of epoxies/JB Weld. It will never be strong enough and will just get in the way of other repair methods.

Also, see if your friend can make a new stepped rivet for the missing spring anchor pin.

JerryVan wrote: Sat Jul 27, 2024 9:46 am That actually looks a lot more promising than I thought. If your metal working friend can braze the stud back on it should be okay. Avoid any kind of epoxies/JB Weld. It will never be strong enough and will just get in the way of other repair methods.

Also, see if your friend can make a new stepped rivet for the missing spring anchor pin.

I was mistaken, there is actually a stepped rivet in the spring barrel. Yes, I'm going to have a friend not only braze it back together but also drill out the center, put a brass bushing in and drill that out in order to take the play out of the center spindle. Here's what I think happened:

Ring, ring "hello, local phonograph repair shop"

Customer: "Yes, I'm wondering if you can fix our old phonograph, it seems to have a broken spring"

Repair guy: "Sure bring it on over and we'll take a look"
"Ah, it's simple, your spring just slipped off the rivet, we've disassembled it and reattached it, you should be good to go"

Ring, ring "hello, local phonograph repair shop"

Customer: "Yes, it appears your fix didn't stay fixed, I'd like you to fix this please"

Repair guy: "Fine, bring it on back over" (possibly reattaches spring and sends it back to customer, it happens again OR he realizes right off that they should replace the rivet... either way they do a crap job, the rivet is oversized and almost impossible to get the pear spring over AND they left burrs inside the spring barrel from the rivets they drilled out).

Ring, ring "hello, local phonograph repair shop"

Customer: "Yes, we've gotten this home, wound it once and it's still not working.

Repair guy: "What the H@#&!! Fine" (repair guy sees barrel has separated from spindle, in a fit of rage he grabs whatever janky pieces of nails he can find, thinks back to that time 25 years ago he had to weld something in school, fires it up, sticks it all together, sends it back to the customer and says "There. I've fixed it. I NEVER want to see it again!)

That's the scenario that I think played out to the best of my deductive reasoning capabilities. It really was rage welded together after these other fix attempts. At least that's what I hope happened

I would not bother sleeving the stud to remove wear. It doesn't need to be at all precise. Also, opening up the hole to accommodate a brass sleeve will cut away the back side of the stepped drive pin, allowing it to fall out. If it's absolutely necessary to sleeve the stud, then bore out each end of it for maybe ¼" deep and insert two brass bushings. That way you won't be cutting into the back side of the drive rivet and ruining it. Even so, I still don't think there's any advantage to sleeving it.