The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Hello forum,
I’ve been working on my XI tabletop, and I got a good portion of both the inside and outside of the lid free of the red and black paint. I’m having trouble deciding which finish this was. All I know is that it’s really pretty . I’ve had people say it was fumed or Flemish but I’d like to get a mass opinion before I do anything destructive. Anyone have any wisdom to spare?

Greg

I can’t be sure about the finish, but it’s looking great. Nice job.

Thanks! This is going to be a great machine!

That is a very nice finish. Was the finish tainted by the black paint.. Some of the books that George Paul published I believe showed different finishes. I do not have the memory to recall which one. The last one has the index but it does not list oak fumed so maybe someone can help. Tom

It looks like one of the stained finishes to me. If it were fumed, you woulnd't be rubbing through the stain in the corners on the inside of the lid like you are doing, unless you are scrubbing really hard. I wouldn't do it that way to be honest if I were you as it may be quite difficult to even all that up when it does come time to stain it and fill the grain. You need to get better pain remover and let it do the work for you. And don't be working with steel wool, or whatever the abrasive is across the grain like that.

As dark as it is, I am in the Flemish Oak camp and that's VERY dark and probably not really a color I would want to go back to. The general color it's turning out to be is really nice though. Those machines are really nice looking and have a lot of detail that Victor eventually gave up on. I've refinished oak pianos that had that finish and they both turned out really nice in the end, but we decided not to go back to that really dark greenish-black color. Most of the green in that finish has faded out (when was the last time you saw an early green Edison cylinder machine?) so that's another thing that's going on with it over the years as well.