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Today I bought an Aeolian-Vocalion console for $20 from Craigslist. The motor works, and it has a little turntable light (although it needs new wiring). It has some delamination and severe crazing on the lid, moderate crazing over the rest and the inside still has a piano finish. It needs a tonearm (although the base and elbow are there) and reproducer. Should I try and fix the machine, or sell the parts? I am more than a little daunted by the task of fixing delamination.

Sounds like
the perfect practice piece.

DGPros wrote:Sounds like
the perfect practice piece.

x 2

A good practice piece, though you may have a little trouble finding a replacement arm- they are the most easily damaged part of these machines & I think many have been removed from plain machines to fix more expensive models.

That is such a personal decision. Regardless of your stage of collecting, if you are not motivated to work on a piece, it is better to pass it along. If you feel guilty about parting it out, you might offer it "as is" to the group. If there are no bites, part it out guilt free. Much of our hobby is a labor of love. If you compared the hours of labor invested against the final value, many of our projects are not worth the financial effort. What makes the effort a true value is the satisfaction of a job well done. Jerry Blais

Jerry B. wrote:That is such a personal decision. Regardless of your stage of collecting, if you are not motivated to work on a piece, it is better to pass it along. If you feel guilty about parting it out, you might offer it "as is" to the group. If there are no bites, part it out guilt free. Much of our hobby is a labor of love. If you compared the hours of labor invested against the final value, many of our projects are not worth the financial effort. What makes the effort a true value is the satisfaction of a job well done. Jerry Blais

Well if I was going to offer it 'as is' to the group, I think that it was unwise of me to tell how much I paid for it... I want to see it work but I think that the bit about not finding a tonearm is gonna pretty much be true. I have spare ortho and Silvertone arms and it would be easy to graft one in, but it just wouldn't be the same. The motor is so smooth and quiet... Even has nickeled spring barrels. Original turntable felt is in great shape, plating is decent, etc. Mechanically, save for the graduola volume thing, it's perfect. I feel like to make a frankenphone of it by using an incorrect part, would be wrong. I also feel like parting it out would be wrong...ish. I guess maybe I can try. Refinishing the cabinet should be easy enough, since there are no intricate details. The hard part would be the delaminating lid, but it's such a simple piece, maybe I could just make a new one???

I don't know, I'll have to think about it. Maybe Brandon will know what to do. He lives close to me.

So temporarily use a modified 'other' tonearm until the rare part appears somewhere. Just don't modify the original parts.

How about showing us a few photos? Aeolian-Vocalions used pot metal tone arms on their earlier machines before going to something better a few years later, these are not pot metal and don't break, yours may take one of those. I'm pretty sure both types had the same base and would be inter-changeable either way. The later arms didn't accommodate vertical-cut discs, but otherwise, there is no reason you couldn't use one of those in a pinch. I've had a few Aeolian-Vocalions over the years and they're nicely built machines with good quality Swiss motors that run almost silently. I have an art case model awaiting some work which has been sitting in my workshop for a few years that is likely worse than what you're describing. I'll get to it eventually.

Sean

I agree with the others Ryan. It's better to practiced on something like this now than a Circassian Walnut victorola in the future .

Pictures would be nice, so we can see what you are seeing.

Best Regards, Larry

Re the needed arm, you might give George Vollema a try.

Clay