The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Were the motor board screws on a Victrola VV-IV plated? Mine are rusted and I cannot tell if they were nickeled or not.

They were nickle plated.
Harvey Kravitz

Thank you. The metal on my machine looks like it was on Titanic.

GrafonolaG50 wrote:Thank you. The metal on my machine looks like it was on Titanic.

Lol. Some parts I recently bought for my Pathé were the same. I think the kids these days are calling it "patina" When it comes to screws, where all you see is the head, one option is to spray paint the head. Give them a good wire brushing and then press the shaft of the screw through a piece of cardboard. Then you can spray only the head of the screw. I'm a fan of Rustoleum Aluminum.

This is a good temporary fix while you keep an eye out for some nice original ones.
Another option is to sandblast or glass-beed them and then keep a light coat of oil on them to keep them from rusting.

donniej wrote:

GrafonolaG50 wrote:Thank you. The metal on my machine looks like it was on Titanic.

Lol. Some parts I recently bought for my Pathé were the same. I think the kids these days are calling it "patina" When it comes to screws, where all you see is the head, one option is to spray paint the head. Give them a good wire brushing and then press the shaft of the screw through a piece of cardboard. Then you can spray only the head of the screw. I'm a fan of Rustoleum Aluminum.

This is a good temporary fix while you keep an eye out for some nice original ones.
Another option is to sandblast or glass-beed them and then keep a light coat of oil on them to keep them from rusting.

I have had some results with using a dremel and carefully polishing the screws.

There are also home plating kits available from APSCO, which I have used to advantage on small parts.

Bill

donniej wrote:

GrafonolaG50 wrote:Thank you. The metal on my machine looks like it was on Titanic.

Quote: "Lol. Some parts I recently bought for my Pathé were the same. I think the kids these days are calling it "patina" "

I hate that word. I always clean and polish parts the best I can to make them look as good as possible. Doing this doesn't ruin any originality I'm just cleaning the crap off. It gets on my nerves when those people on the history channel or whatever say that even cleaning dirt off will decrease the value because it will apeareny ruin the originality.

Another thing that bothers me is when someone finds an old machine and they call it rustic. I also hate that word. Imagine in 100 years the future generations might be finding "old" computers and calling them rustic and laugh at how "primitive" they were. To me calling a phonograph rustic is offending to the people who put in countless hours of experimentation to develop something as good as it was. The phonograph was the Internet of its day.

End of rant. Apologies in advance.

No apologies needed: ditto, I agree in full. These machines were made to be shiny and eyestriking, not dull & rusty.

Victrolaboy wrote:

donniej wrote:

GrafonolaG50 wrote:Thank you. The metal on my machine looks like it was on Titanic.

Quote: "Lol. Some parts I recently bought for my Pathé were the same. I think the kids these days are calling it "patina" "

I hate that word. I always clean and polish parts the best I can to make them look as good as possible. Doing this doesn't ruin any originality I'm just cleaning the crap off. It gets on my nerves when those people on the history channel or whatever say that even cleaning dirt off will decrease the value because it will apeareny ruin the originality.

Another thing that bothers me is when someone finds an old machine and they call it rustic. I also hate that word. Imagine in 100 years the future generations might be finding "old" computers and calling them rustic and laugh at how "primitive" they were. To me calling a phonograph rustic is offending to the people who put in countless hours of experimentation to develop something as good as it was. The phonograph was the Internet of its day.

End of rant. Apologies in advance.

I sure wish we could give "likes" to these types of posts.