The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Hello all,

I'm having a dog of a time with replating a few parts, and would greatly appreciate your help.

1. The spindle shaft for the turntable. Is it supposed to be just standard bare metal, just polished? As you can see, it was plated, then partially stripped, and now looks just awful.
2. What is supposed to be plated and not plated on the tone arm parts? They didn't fit together originally because the plating was too thick, and after some selective stripping, they fit together, but they sure don't look good. Are the gooseneck screw threads supposed to be plated? Anyone want to share a photo of their disassembled original parts? If so, I would be most grateful!

Many thanks!

There is a thread on "if" spindles were plated or not already. AFAIK, spindles were and are just polished steel....."not plated". At least on Victor's & Berliner's. All tone arm parts were plated. Just not the inner tube part of the tube for the "U" tube and the part of the "U" that goes inside. The threading on the screw cap is also not plated. Platers cover or fill these areas of these parts prior to dipping. If you do coat these areas.....you will need to buff off the plating. However, this may damage those areas for accuracy.

I've had the same problem when re-plating parts that fit together. The safest thing I found was to mask the areas which fit together. That way the dimension will not change when stripping off the old finish or when re-plating.

This is a valuable lesson for us all. Platers are not phonograph collectors, (for the most part), and have no idea how these parts are to be used. When asked to nickel plate some given item, they will plate 100% of it unless told to mask off certain areas. However, it's a pretty crappy plater that would assume to nickel plate a screw thread!

Some platers will also go crazy with over buffing an item, trying for a "show finish". Sometimes that's nice and is required. Other times however, it ruins the look of a piece. For example, the carriage parts for a Columbia Q were plated, but not really brightly buffed before hand. It was a cheap machine and the plating was just done over the existing metal finish and texture leaving a plated surface that is a bit dull and not like a bright mirror.

The bottom line is, you have to tell the plater exactly what you want or you will get exactly what you don't.