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Has anyone ever experienced this? I took apart a Victrola VV-XI 2 spring motor. Took the covers off the spring barrels and set them aside. Next thing I know, one of the spring barrels starts spinning around all by itself. The spring was not completely unwound and broke loose after I had taken the cover off the spring barrel and set it down! Never seen that before! I did notice a slight separation about the middle of the spring where it appeared to have 2 separate coils, an outer coil and an inner coil. The thought flashed through my head that maybe the spring was bent, but I didn't pay it much attention. Next time, I will.

Needless to say, the grease was pretty brittle, so I cleaned up the springs and reinstalled them and everything works great, now.

Cliff

CDBPDX wrote:Has anyone ever experienced this? I took apart a Victrola VV-XI 2 spring motor. Took the covers off the spring barrels and set them aside. Next thing I know, one of the spring barrels starts spinning around all by itself. The spring was not completely unwound and broke loose after I had taken the cover off the spring barrel and set it down! Never seen that before! I did notice a slight separation about the middle of the spring where it appeared to have 2 separate coils, an outer coil and an inner coil. The thought flashed through my head that maybe the spring was bent, but I didn't pay it much attention. Next time, I will.

Needless to say, the grease was pretty brittle, so I cleaned up the springs and reinstalled them and everything works great, now.

Cliff

That's funny; I remember the first spring I took out, it got away from me and made quite a mess.

Phonoboy wrote:

CDBPDX wrote:Has anyone ever experienced this? I took apart a Victrola VV-XI 2 spring motor. Took the covers off the spring barrels and set them aside. Next thing I know, one of the spring barrels starts spinning around all by itself. The spring was not completely unwound and broke loose after I had taken the cover off the spring barrel and set it down! Never seen that before! I did notice a slight separation about the middle of the spring where it appeared to have 2 separate coils, an outer coil and an inner coil. The thought flashed through my head that maybe the spring was bent, but I didn't pay it much attention. Next time, I will.

Needless to say, the grease was pretty brittle, so I cleaned up the springs and reinstalled them and everything works great, now.

Cliff

That's funny; I remember the first spring I took out, it got away from me and made quite a mess.

I made a video of an exploding spring:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZYLu2WuOZk

CDBPDX wrote:Has anyone ever experienced this? I took apart a Victrola VV-XI 2 spring motor. Took the covers off the spring barrels and set them aside. Next thing I know, one of the spring barrels starts spinning around all by itself. The spring was not completely unwound and broke loose after I had taken the cover off the spring barrel and set it down! Never seen that before! I did notice a slight separation about the middle of the spring where it appeared to have 2 separate coils, an outer coil and an inner coil. The thought flashed through my head that maybe the spring was bent, but I didn't pay it much attention. Next time, I will.

Needless to say, the grease was pretty brittle, so I cleaned up the springs and reinstalled them and everything works great, now.

Cliff

That's a really interesting post, thanks.

Being a novice at replacing springs, I never would have even thought of something like this.

I guess no matter what the situation; pulling the spring out of a barrel carefully to keep it safely contained --just in case -- is always a good idea.

Fran

Very instructive video. Thanks for posting!

I'll never forget the first (and only) time I disengaged the governor of my XI while the springs were still under tension. The instant the governor shaft came out of the one bearing end, the springs released with alarming violence, spraying dirty old Victor graphite/vaseline gear lube all over the place and scaring the be-geez out of me, as the now-liberated gear train spun violently for about one millisecond. Then it was all over, as suddenly as it had begun. I gained a new respect for the power stored up in those springs! Of course, in this instance, everything was contained, nothing broke, and no harm was done. But lesson learned!

A couple times, I've wound up machines where the winding pawl failed. Really beat the heck out of my hand. All 30 or more windings come completely unwound in about 1.5 seconds. The crank handle is spinning under power at 20 revolutions per second, or about 1200 rpm. That's fast enough that in the 0.4 seconds it takes to realize your hand is getting beat up and pull it away, you can get banged by the handle 8 times. Very painful lessons.

Cliff

CDBPDX wrote:A couple times, I've wound up machines where the winding pawl failed. Really beat the heck out of my hand. All 30 or more windings come completely unwound in about 1.5 seconds. The crank handle is spinning under power at 20 revolutions per second, or about 1200 rpm. That's fast enough that in the 0.4 seconds it takes to realize your hand is getting beat up and pull it away, you can get banged by the handle 8 times. Very painful lessons.

Cliff

Sometimes learning is painful.

Great post! I to have had the "be-geez" scared out of me when a Standard spring let loose. Fortunately no injuries but I am sure I trimmed a year or two off of my life span.

Now if I do anything near a spring I do it in an empty 5 gal pail.

Bruce