The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

TinfoilPhono wrote:My #1104 has a cast iron carriage -- a magnet sticks forcefully. The adjusting screw on yours is also slightly different in shape than others I've seen. The fact that yours is brass, and the shaver screw thread is off, makes me suspect that is a reproduction carriage. If so, it appears to be very well made and should serve perfectly once it's painted and you've rethreaded the screw.

I was thinking possibly reproduction, hard to tell really, it was inexpensive ether way so should be fine when the missing parts are found

Looking very nice. I love these early Home machines!

The home is about done!

A carriage arrived in the mail today (Thanks Jake!) so after a lot of fiddling and adjustment (more needed yet) the home sung it's first song in decades!, it's quite amazing considering the state that this machine was in earlier in the year when I found it at an auction house full of furniture and tat in the middle of nowhere in Cumbria.

I need to make another carriage clip and find a couple more screws (does anyone by chance have a spare pair of screws?), In time I may get a small brass horn but it's doing just fine with the 30" brass horn for now and of course I need to find more brown wax cylinders to go with it!.

It's still a little stiff but it's saved and soon hopefully will be a reliable machine put into regular service soon

Jaw hits floor... That's fantastic Alex! All credit to you for leaving it with its wonderful patina, wearing its age with pride.

Erm… video please!

Fine job!

Jerry B.

Very, very Cool!

That is awesome! Another machine made in the 1890s still doing its thing in 2020!

Thanks, here's a quick little video I did of the home in action

(Double-click the video above or click this link to go to the video on YouTube.)

I carved out a bit of time tonight to finally get this issue of the missing carriage clip sorted, I made a new clip from some spare sheet brass I had and plated it, I also searched through a box of dead soundboxes and parts and found a couple of screws with a thread that matched.
I was going to thread my own screws on my old 20’s lathe which does have option to do fine threading, but although I have a complete set of feed gearing, it needs additional gearing to access the fine feed, but these screws should do for now.

I’ve also got a very special treat coming in the post for this home, I shall show All once it arrives

The bottom clip is the new one.

Nice job on the clip, Alex... you can't tell it from the original.