RAE - 26 Electrola from 1931
Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2017 8:59 am
Since I was asked to post a link or some pictures of this thing, I figured it might make more sense to have it on a different thread. I can take some pictures of this thing as well later today if you'd like and post them also. I know this is mostly about spring wound machines, but the early electric stuff is still part of that era, and it is what displaced the acoustic stuff. I usually draw the line at about 1935 though, when they started putting 'take in' grooves on the rim of the record. After that, it's just too new. It also makes a difference if you actually like the music these machines play. It surprises me how many phonograph collectors there are that DO NOT like any of the music! Or say the record noise is so distracting they can't listen to them. Anyway,RolandVV-360 wrote:Hey! I bet you feel lucky to have bought an RAE-26...
I've been searching for a darn long time, and I haven't seen a single one. If you can share some pictures of the RAE-26, or even a video, I'd greatly appreciate it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoqC0784FM0
Is a link to it playing a few records. The guy I bought it from said it had been "Re-wired" and it was playing for about an hour or two before another resistor kicked the bucket. Or at least I let the smoke out of one! So I pulled the chassis out and whoever did the work on it was sort of hit and miss. Some of it's really nicely done and other stuff looks like it was done by a guy that probably was of the opinion that more solder was better. Anyway, the work looked like it was done back in the 1960's and it was actually one of the 'new' resistors that burned up. So, it's at the shop and who knows when Skip will have time to get to it. It's no rush as I need to refinish the cabinet on it. It sounds pretty good in the video, but it's kind of muddy sounding in person but that's probably because of the parts that were puking out on it.
It changes records pretty nicely. Skip has an RAE 59 (Which is the next one up the ladder with a larger cabinet and ability to make home recordings) that he was going to sell. But after he spent about three days tweaking that changer and getting it to work like it's supposed to, he's changed his mind. They are not the easiest things to get adjusted but seem to be just fine once they are working properly. I can see why most of the guys servicing them would have suggested the landfill though as soon as they were old enough as they are not easy to make seemingly small adjustments on. Like getting the needle to land where it needs to on the rim of the record. It's surprising too on the similarities to this changer mechanism, and the 10-70 which is a few years earlier.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cqgq3ZsptwU
This is the transmission working. I sat there for a good 12 hours getting that thing to stop at the end of the cycle! After I cleaned and oiled it, that damned thing wouldn't stop at the end of the cycle and getting that finger to catch the moon shaped thing and stop will drive you to drink. For the first 6-7 hours I thought it was out of time and then I realized I was going to have to bend that finger a little bit to get that thing to catch it. I finally got it to catch as you can see, but man it was frustrating. And it still needs some more tweaking, but that will have to wait until Skip gets the chassis done. I'm in no rush about it as there's plenty to do around here. The guys that are doing this stuff for a living can't be charging enough, or none of it would ever get restored. A real frustration of mine is people who say they restored something when all they did was write the check, and don't give the person that actually did the work any credit. Like the folks that think an adjusting screw fell out in their player piano, and that's why the whole thing stopped working. Ok....
