The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Just picked up a Symphonola graphophone. The motor looks like a Columbia. It works very well, though the reproducer is not very exciting. The thumb screw is broken off. The tone arm is frozen at the horizontal swivel point. Any suggestions on how to loosen that without breaking something?

Weren't Symphonola graphophones distributed in Canada? Any relation to the Seeburg Symphonola juke box?

Symphonola was the name of talking machines distributed as premiums by the Larkin Soap Co. This was indeed made by Columbia, though Larkin used several contractors over the years.

Yes, you are correct. The Symphonola was made in Canada using Columbia components. I saw one similar in an antique store,some years ago, but they wanted too much money for it. It looks like a nice machine.
Harvey Kravitz

Got it for $140 from Craigslist. I'm pretty happy with it, except for the tone arm issue. I think I have another reproducer that will work if I can get the tone arm unstuck.

Any ideas on when this was made?

Since it has a female crank, I would say it was made from about 1913-15. The arm parts are pot metal that causes parts to get frozen. Use Kroil or penetrating oil and soak the joints for a couple of days. Gently work the parts back and forth. If you can't get it the first time keep trying. You will eventually get it loose.
Harvey Kravitz

I finally loosened up the frozen tone arm swivel, but... After soaking for several daysin WD-40, it still wouldn't budge, so I remembered something about heating the metal to break the 'rust', which I did. About 30 minutes at 400 degress in the oven. It worked, but the plating on the elbow is toast. Win one and lose one. At least it works, even if it ain't pretty no more... Odd that the plating on the base was unaffected.

It works great!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQJPR9e3rMk

a few more minutes in that kind of heat and that elbow would be toast. That bubbling is some component of the pot metal melting. My guess is the part is now more brittle than it was before heating. The machine sounds good, though.

The two tonearm components were probably made from different batches of potmetal which would make them react differently to the heat. From my observations of potmetal rot, it would appear that no two batches were quite the same. I would not have thought of heating the parts. I usually put them in the freezer overnight to shrink both parts. Sometimes it has to be done multiple times, working the pieces apart a little at a time. However, consider yourself lucky that they came apart at all without breakage.

Jim

I finally got around to digging this out. It's the Larkin ad for December 1915. Appears to be this machine. I love how the player piano guards "... the moral safety of the young folks of that house and neighborhood..." whereas the phonograph is just a deal.

Jim