The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

A phonograph collectors worst nightmare, shattered potmetal!
unfortunately the potmetal tone arm on my off-brand phonograph broke today due to spring tension on the inside balance spring (it was a Heineman Tone Arm No.11).

I am keeping the broken tone arm parts because it's original to the phonograph, but I want to replace it with a Victor arm for playing my 78s. I am wondering if one would be compatible.

Here are the mounting specs:
The outter rim of the tone arm mounting base has a 45mm radius.
There are 3 evenly placed screw holes 3mm in from the outer rim.
The inner sound hole has a 33mm radius.

Would a Victor Victrola tone arm work on this phonograph?

-It is a beautiful cabinet phonograph with a good motor and finish, its only downfall was the tone arm.

I agree that broken pot metal parts a worst nightmare for collectors. I had this happen on my Magnola Talking Machine back in 1987, The Heinemann reproducer has a back bracket that broke off in my hand after swiveling it.

My grandfather checked in his parts cabinets and could not find the replacement so we spent the saturday afternoon gluing the broken pieces and sanding them when dry. We then spray painted the part with silver or grey paint. It was the best we could do. In 1995, I was able to locate a similar reproducer from Player Piano Clinic in Illinois, he has many off-brand parts like Heinemann. and eleven years later (2006) I found a Magnola reproducer on ebay. I now have my machine back to original.

My point is you can try and repair the parts until you can locate a correct replacement, but it took me 17 years to get the correct reproducer on the machine. My advise is to check on the forum and then check around parts dealers for the pot metal tone arm. I am not sure if there is too much stress from the balance spring to repair, but it may be worth a shot.

I was going to go the route of a Victor reproducer and tone arm, but it just did not seem right for my machine. I'm thinking why did Heinemann have to make such cheap pot metal parts?

Check with George Vollema...Heinemann made tons of those arms, he should have a replacement.

Thanks for the info.
I posted an inquiry on the Heineman tone arm in the 'Yankee Trader' section, with pictures of what I need.

Do you have the contact info for George Vollema? It would be great to replace it with an original type arm.

-I did see a listing for one of these arms on eBay wrongly advertised as a Victrola tone arm, however the part I need (the base mount) is broken.

Player-Tone wrote: Do you have the contact info for George Vollema?

Why not use the SEARCH function on the forum?

Got it.