The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

After a long project I finally got to what I hoped was the last stage, repairing the dividers that hold the records in the William and Mary Console. I thought I had read here somewhere that the cardboard dividers had a cloth type cover for the ends. When I took these out they were awful looking with all kinds of flaking pieces off the edges. It turned out that the edges are metal and painted reddish brown. That seemed easy, sand them and paint them an put them back in, no finding materials and cutting and glueing.. However even though they now look great when I tested a record between a couple of them I was sad to see it come out with fine scratches into the surface that the metal, which is somewhat irregular made. The metal looks like it was squeezed in place causing lots of little mild humps in the surface, some of which are evidently catching on the surface causing scratching. In honesty I missed one on each side that was still in place and it caused the worst damage, orangish scratches in the surface. When I tired records between the newly refinished I still get mild surface swirls from the records turning in and out..
Were these record dividers always edged in metal? My other machines don't cause damage to the records, although at least the other one I looked at appears to have a metal trim as well. Anyone run into this issue? Can I take off the metal without totally wrecking the parts and if so what would work for ends?

Some things never seem to come to a good end..

Larry

I had this same problem with my C19. The dividers are cardboard, with a metal strip crimped over the edge fror strength, and then the rexine is glued over the metal. The problem seemed to be that as soon as a divider gets some pressure on it in one direction, the metal strip kicks out leaving a sharp point that scratches your discs when you take them in or out of the cabinet.
I ended up removing the dividers, then one by one, I hammered the metal edging flat from both sides, and then glued all the rexine back down using bulldog clips to hold it while the glue dried.
It took me about 6 hours to do them all, but it was well worth it, and I haven't had a problem with scratched records since.

Shane,

My computers been out due to lighting last night early.. As to those metal strips, I tried to squeeze down some of the more obvious bumps in them but it might be helpful to put something heavy over them and hammer as you say.. MIne seemed to have been painted as it was flaking off like paint from the rust underneath? I wondered about putting a thin material of some kind over them but was worried it might cause them to be too thick.. What material did you find to work over the metal?

Larry

Mine already had original rexine covering over the metal edges, but from memory it was quite thin, unlike the thinker rexine you find on portable machines.
About 20 yrs ago, my great-Aunt gave me a roll of stuff that would be perfect for this application. It is rexine binding for sheet music & has a pre-glued back which you dampen & glue to the spine. She bought it in the 1930s though, so I doubt it's even manufactured now, but it might be worth making a couple phone calls to some music stores that stock musical instruments & sheet music, to see if a similar product is available.
I guess you could cut your own too, but most of the rexine I've seen advertised seems to be fairly thick, and with 70+ dividers to do, it could be very time consuming.
I guess you could also check out a haberdashery store and see if they have any bias binding that is thin enough, but you'd have to unfold the underside as you glued it down so it wasn't too bulky.
I think vinyl would be too thick, but perhaps some other sort of plastic sheeting could be suitable.

You may want to take a look at book binding tape which is a cloth tape with good adhesive and is available in multiple colors.

Update here. I decided to give something a try.. I recalled that walmart has a rack of colored Duct Tape one of which is a dark maroon something similar to the color it was. I got that and cut it just short of the two slots the dividers have to slide in. Instead of trimming it which would have been difficult at best I used the whole width and folded it over the end smoothing it out. I sort of figured that having the excess firmly attached to the cardboard would keep it from wanting to possibly be pulled loose by the records moving in and out. Its not too bad of a job since I already had sanded and painted them. You can't always get every bit of it smooth on the insides but they aren't going to be seen. Time will tell it if will hold up. I know that duct tape can have a tendency to turn loose from some surfaces, nothing much lost if it does, I will be back where I started. In the meantime I can finally open the doors and have it look nice and store records in it for the first time..

Larry

Now that I see it in an enlarged screen and with the flash bringing too many thing out I can see the tops aren't all quite covered. In actual use that isn't noticeable since its low to the eye level and dark inside. Better than it was..