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I've been gently fiddling with my new Amberola V, to reduce noise in the motor. The noise isn't obnoxious, but I'd prefer it to be gone. I reduced it a bit by moving the governor about ¼" so its spiral engages a bit differently (mistake: adjusting the speed control took dozens of tries! ) ... it's little quieter now. The main source of noise seems to be where a large gear which feeds power from below-deck to the upper works meshes with the small gear which turns the mandrel. Some really sticky grease helps, but only for a few minutes until it gets squished aside. Oh, and the fact that the works are screwed directly to the hollow wooden cabinet doesn't help - it amplifies like a piano's sounding board. Edison should have used rubber or springs to isolate the motor.

Qustion: are there any modern gears, made out of Delrin or something like that, which could be used on these machines?

ps - I took out an Amberola D-X this afternoon, to see if its reproducer was in place (it was) & I ran the motor for a few minutes, without adding any (much needed) oil. Its motor is SILENT! I can stick my head under the lid, with a hand cupped behind my ear, and still hear nothing except a faint 'squish' from old grease on the gears. Then there's my B - X made of solid oak (no veneer, except the plywood bottom) but with a Gem-type motor that sounds like a badly tuned truck. I suppose both machines are just indicating their levels of use.

I realized that much of the noise amplification was coming from the sheet-metal horn, so I grabbed some old hand towels & put one under the horn, then packed a couple between the horn & the (in)sides of the cabinet, then packed some more around the horn toward the rear - most of this thing is empty space! Maybe ⅓ - ½ of the motor noise went away! All the booze-hiding space is gone, but it beats gluing newspapers onto the horn, as I've seen done.

Edisone wrote:I realized that much of the noise amplification was coming from the sheet-metal horn, so I grabbed some old hand towels & put one under the horn, then packed a couple between the horn & the (in)sides of the cabinet, then packed some more around the horn toward the rear - most of this thing is empty space! Maybe ⅓ - ½ of the motor noise went away! All the booze-hiding space is gone, but it beats gluing newspapers onto the horn, as I've seen done.

I have been told that packing the interior of the cabinet with towels, blankets etc is a well known method of trying to improve the bass frequences, although I have never tried it myself. Have you noticed any improvement?

Edisone wrote: All the booze-hiding space is gone, but it beats gluing newspapers onto the horn, as I've seen done.

OK, time to confess.......

I used to hide beer in my Amberola 1A's space behind the horn when I was in high school! My parents never knew there was a door on the back side. It had no effect on the sound until I drank a few!

Steve

Heck, a teen-ager who has an Amberola 1A DESERVES a few beers in celebration.

Andersun wrote:

Edisone wrote: All the booze-hiding space is gone, but it beats gluing newspapers onto the horn, as I've seen done.

OK, time to confess.......

I used to hide beer in my Amberola 1A's space behind the horn when I was in high school! My parents never knew there was a door on the back side. It had no effect on the sound until I drank a few!

Steve

epigramophone wrote:

Edisone wrote:I realized that much of the noise amplification was coming from the sheet-metal horn, so I grabbed some old hand towels & put one under the horn, then packed a couple between the horn & the (in)sides of the cabinet, then packed some more around the horn toward the rear - most of this thing is empty space! Maybe ⅓ - ½ of the motor noise went away! All the booze-hiding space is gone, but it beats gluing newspapers onto the horn, as I've seen done.

I have been told that packing the interior of the cabinet with towels, blankets etc is a well known method of trying to improve the bass frequences, although I have never tried it myself. Have you noticed any improvement?

I can't imagine how you could get the packing material close enough, tight enough around the horn to help deaden the sound and perhaps improve the bass. Glueing layers of paper around the horn, which I have seen on a very late Amberola 60, seems like it would be beneficial but can't confirm that myself.

New discovery: I thought Edison must have made some 'V's with just one driving wire "whisker", because mine has only one. Wrong! Looking at it with a bright flashlight, I see that my 'one' is actually not connected to the brass gears - it's broken off! The other side is totally gone, and I didn't see the holes where it should go because the bits of wire are still filling the holes. Aargh.

So, I need to remove the broken-off bits & replace the wire, which I now assume must be a single piece which goes straight through the gear & central axle. Does anyone know the size & type of wire? Springy steel, I take it.

update: Not such a big deal - I used the remaining piece of wire to push out the broken bits. Now just need to find wire to fit - it's smaller than the paperclips I have around the house (just checked!)

For my spring replacement I used an appropriate length of guitar string in the thickest gauge I could find-solid, not wound.
It's worked well for me in two different machines:
Bob

Edisone wrote:Heck, a teen-ager who has an Amberola 1A DESERVES a few beers in celebration.

Andersun wrote:

Edisone wrote: All the booze-hiding space is gone, but it beats gluing newspapers onto the horn, as I've seen done.

OK, time to confess.......

I used to hide beer in my Amberola 1A's space behind the horn when I was in high school! My parents never knew there was a door on the back side. It had no effect on the sound until I drank a few!

Steve

One of my Porsche in a barn stories! It is serial number 2448. I sold it many years ago. Someone on this forum might have it. I may have left some Old Chicago Beer in the back! Cheers!

Edisone wrote:So, I need to remove the broken-off bits & replace the wire, which I now assume must be a single piece which goes straight through the gear & central axle. Does anyone know the size & type of wire? Springy steel, I take it. )

I found a similar wire while repairing an Opera. I would imagine that it is the same thickness.

Here is an except from my recent article: There is a thin, straight wire spring that couples the flywheel and mandrel shaft as some kind of shock buffer when starting and stopping the machine – it was broken in three places. It measured 0.022 inch thick. I found a close replacement measuring 0.205 inch at a RC model airplane hobby shop. It comes in 3 foot lengths, used for control lines from servos to flaps. I had to crimp the wire at each end to prevent it falling from the flywheel. I probably could have bent the wire sightly in the center where it passed through the shaft to hold it tight.

The wire is springy, as you suspected. In fact, the model shop called it music wire, like a guitar string or piano wire.