The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Hi -

I recently acquired a Victor R motor and case, from an early example of this cheap yet cute phono. It has a fiber main drive gear, and it's missing a couple of teeth. This means that as it runs, the brass gear to which it mates jumps that gap - and then digs back in when it finds the next good tooth...but I'm guessing it's also chewing that next tooth away each time.

So I wonder whether any of you know of a replacement ever being made available? I'll call Ron Sitko, but is there anyone else who might potentially help? I've also heard of a tooth replacement technique, using epoxy, which seems a little scary.

Discovering and troubleshooting this gear issue was a little bit fun, too, though...I already had a later version of the R in hand, also a front-mount, so it was interesting to look them both over and compare and contrast.

The early ones have the threaded record spindle, enabling use of the screw-on record hold-down. One might think that the threading is the only difference. Nope!

Here are things I found to be different. Note that the span of time from the early one (pre-dog, s/n under 4000) and the late one (dog, "remove to attach taper arm" plate, and s/n about 45,000) is only a couple of years or so according to the limited data available.

EARLY
- threaded center spindle
- main drive gear is fiber, bolted to steel center disk
- "blued" governor weight springs

LATE
- smooth center spindle
- governor speed adjustment lever has small spring attaching to bedplate to help the pads withdraw from contact when speed is increased by user
- main drive gear is brass with spokes
- plain steel governor springs

BOTH
- governor bracket castings have same geometry but different details
- although both have 3 ball-type governor weights, the weights are different across the models
- different diameter beveled gears, and different corresponding beveled gears for record spindles
- main drive gears are different diameters and thus governor drive gears have different teeth counts

It's highly apparent that all the major changes were improvements, with the possible exception that the fiber gear was quieter at the expense of durability. The governor bracket change may be to slightly reduce cost, since the later casting is simpler, and the difference in governor weights may be related to the differences in gearing geometries.

Anyway, it was fun to poke around with them.

Any help on that gear though?

PeterF wrote: So I wonder whether any of you know of a replacement ever being made available? I'll call Ron Sitko, but is there anyone else who might potentially help?

Yes Ron Sitko carries these fiber gears, they're and exact fit and work as the originals.

Also on the earliest Victor R's you will find a stamped steel spring barrel instead of the common brass spring barrel. And the very earliest Victor R's did not have the copper stripes, but were just solid black.

Larry Crandell

Oh, that is excellent and useful information - thanks! I had actually noticed the difference on the spring barrels, but neglected to mention it in my summary.

Did the early R also have a leather elbow, or was it always brass for the front-mounts? Were the horns always brass-belled, or all black up to some point as well?

Thanks also for the good news on the Sitko gears! I'll call him and get me one pronto. The older motor will go from sounding like this:

clank-clank-clank-clank-clank-clank-BZZZT!-clank-clank-clank-clank-clank-clank-BZZZT!-clank-clank-...

to just plain:

clank-clank-clank-clank-clank-clank-clank-clank-clank-clank-clank-clank-clank-clank-clank-clank-...

PeterF wrote:
Did the early R also have a leather elbow, or was it always brass for the front-mounts? Were the horns always brass-belled, or all black up to some point as well?

The earliest Royals used leather elbows, and the standard horn for the the Royal was always a 16 inch all-black horn. A brass belled horn was a 50 cent additional cost.

George P.

Thanks George.

Any idea about serial number ranges for each transition?

PeterF wrote:Thanks George.

Any idea about serial number ranges for each transition?

You're welcome.

I don't have hard data on serial ranges. Such data would be difficult to gather unless the Royals in question were never tinkered with. How can we know?

I believe that most/all Royals with 4-digit serial numbers were originally equipped with leather elbows. That's based only on observation, and casual observation at that.

George P.

George is nothing, if not casual. And that's all the more to admire about him.

So I'm going to casually say that some owners might have updated their early Royals from leather to a brass elbow, as well, and I'm going to say that because that's what mine has.

For now.