The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Has anyone ever experienced a failure of the little rachet gear,or small catch gear, (think thats what it is called) that prevents the crank from unloading after the crank is released? A while back I wound up an Edison upright and I no sooner left go of the crank and it turned into a screaming propeller. The end of the crank caught my thumb and split the nail wide open (not a pretty sight.) If I recall, this catch gear had a spring which pulled the gear down, whereby it caught the winding gear and prevented this from happening. I replaced the spring off a spare motor, but ever since that incident its always on my mind.

I had the spring coil go bad on the crank of my Victor 1-1 - it is just a lightweight single spring machine but it started bouncing and vibrating - the record it was playing at the time is full of small holes.

On a lighter note, the governor on my Cheney motor went bad in a funny way. It dropped a weight. I didn't know this- I started the record & at first it played just fine - but as the arm moved towards the center it shifted the weight, which affected the drag, and the record started to speed up. It was about half way through before I realized something was very odd.

That mechanism is called a ratchet & pawl.

Sorry to laugh but this reminds me of one time many years ago when I was trying to figure out what in heck was causing a fully wound (and I do mean fully wound) motor on one of my Standard Talking Machine Model A phonographs to cease running. These motors utilize the often-worn-out fiber gear as we all know (and love!) and I had assumed the fiber gear was stuck so...you guessed it...I decided to loosen the governor just a little...WEEEEEEEEEEEEE....what fun! My first instinct was to grab the faster-than-a-speeding-bullet spinning spring barrel and in the process the winding gear attached to it proceeded to chew up the flesh on my thumb. So now I have a funny looking thumb print. Yes, it was a dumb thing to do but as we know our first instinct is to try to halt or limit any damage to the wildly out of control motor. That was a long time ago and I'm a bit wiser now. Reminds of another time I was ironing a shirt before going to work one morning and I mishandled the hot iron when trying to set it down on the ironing board and tried to catch it. I caught it all right...but not by the handle. Oh boy. - Doug

Ah yes the I'll just adjust the governor a bit!! For such simple innocent looking motors they can reach out and teach us a lesson!

It's not all glamor being a phono nerd. There are risks. Jerry

Good one Jerry B.

Yeh, well did you ever try working on an amberola 30, 50, or, 75, and, have power problems, and, decide, stupid, to remove the mandrel with the motor still wound up?



Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, goes the motor without the goveernorbeing in the circuit anymore. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, I like spinning my top!
And, you try to stop the fast running gears with your bare hands???????/
Or, how about working on a standard missing the gear cover, bending over your work, and, betting your hair caught in the gears?????????/
Ouch!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Bill Cahill

Years ago I was working on one of those little Thorens disc music boxes when the gear train let loose. I was holding the saw-tooth disc when it happened and the results were grisly to say the least.

The Victrola 1-1 (Victrolita) is quite a beast. In Victors quest to keep the cost down, they cut a lot of corners. The crank has a spring on it, and when cranking it relaxes to allow the main spring to be tightened. When done, a little of the main spring power is used to tighten up the spring that holds the winding shaft solid. When I was rebuilding mine, this slipped out of it's holder many times and bounced all around. I was never playing a record fortunately. I have repaired it, all be it no better than Victor did in the 1920's. I am very hesitant to use the machine much, as it is built so cheap the problems are likely to return at any point.