The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I recently picked up a vv 2-25 from a local thrift shop. I was pleased to find it was in a fairly functional condition, just bumps and scrapes from the gears and the mainspring. However as I was going through the motions of a rebuild I found that the spring barrel was welded/soldered closed (I don't know which, though a soldering iron didn't appear to be hot enough to desolder). I haven't encountered this before and was wondering if anyone had any ideas on how to break it open without any significant damage to the spring barrel? Also there appears to be some linen stuffed into the tone arm, is this normal for a portable player, or was it someones way of dampening the sound coming out of the player?

The cloth was probably put there as a "volume control". Never heard of a soldered spring barrel either. Photos?

Sorry it's taken me so long to reply back. I'm getting very close to giving up on this restore. I had a nut strip on me when I was putting it back together for storage and was forced to cut it off in order to even get at the spring barrel again. And I have a stuck bearing now. But anyways I finally at least got it apart to take pictures. See what you think.

Rivets- and amateur work

To open the spring barrel, you will have to drill out the rivets. Once it is opened and you want it back together, just use small bolts & nuts...

Thanks for the info, hopefully I can get this thing up and going again.

Two questions: since I'm not finding any such thing as a 2-25 on the victor-victrola.com site, can you tell us more about this one? And what's with that sound box?

Well it's not truly a Victor Victrola product. That's where I started looking too. It's an early RCA Victor model that still uses the VV declaration. The VV2-25 model was found on the speed dial but the sales label clearly says RCA Victor. As far as the actual sound box it is a weird little thing, it's purely for transport/portability. It's a metal box that apparently rusted/faded brown. (I'm color blind so I thought it was a faded rusted green.) It has a leather handle that's seen better days. Inside there's a spot to store 4-5 7-10" records for transport and a clip to keep the reproducer stationary. Attached to the same clip for the reproducer is a clip for the removed winding handle. The reproducer doesn't seem to be the original for the machine because it had some old plumbers tape or something similar as a kind of gasket. I ended up using some electrical tape matched up as well as I could to the reproducer end. The metal case also serves as the sound horn for the phonograph which is very different to what I've seen before with my standing model Brunswick. I haven't been doing this for very long and this is only the second machine I've attempted to restore.

Thanks for taking the trouble to photograph and post the nice pictures. My guess is that this model stems from the immediate period of the Victor merger with RCA, i.e. around 1929, so in a sense it is a kind of transition example. Do we know more about the history, such as dates of production and numbers made, I wonder? I note the extensive use of stamped metal (case, motor board), although the basic design is similar to earlier Vic portables.

Design and construction seems like a distant cousin to the VV 2-55 portable Orthophonic...

Still probably a notch or two above the plywood & leatherette portables...

Looks like a small machine...


Good luck with it !