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Price reduction: This is an Exhibition Reproducer (gramophone London, Berlin, Paris) # 558041. It has the round needle hole and comes with the original box. It has been rebuilt, tuned and tested. Sounds great! Note: the threads for the needle thumbscrew has been widened. See pics for details. Thanks, Roy

Come on. How can this be considered “rebuilt, tuned and tested” if it doesn’t even have a thumbscrew to secure the needle in place - because the hole has apparently been redrilled and widened?

Accidentally double posted. Can’t delete.

Shouldn’t the nuts be knurled? Where is the thumb screw that fits this? I’d be more interested if these questions were answered.

Matt

You can't really consider this to be an early "round hole" reproducer anymore, since the needle chuck is ruined. Finding a loose round hole needle bar is going to be a challenge and if you use a later needle bar it won't be round hole, either... Fixing the original needle bar is going to be challenging, if even possible, to fill and re-tap that large hole...

Whoever drilled out the thumbscrew hole, replaced it with a screw. I used the screw to test and it sounded very good. It's unfortunate that someone did this, I admit. However, I believe it can be corrected.

toysbyroy wrote:Whoever drilled out the thumbscrew hole, replaced it with a screw. I used the screw to test and it sounded very good. It's unfortunate that someone did this, I admit. However, I believe it can be corrected.

Any ideas on how you would correct it?

possibly fill the hole and re-drill and tap it to the proper size threads.

blizz

It's a shame that they made such a mess of that hole. One thing I would consider is to silver solder a brass rod into the hole and fill any gaps with silver solder as well, while being careful to keep any material out of the needle socket. Dress and polish the outer face of the chuck and drill and tap the setscrew hole. Chemically blacken or paint the chuck and you're done. I recently repaired a broken hinge block hole in a brass-bodied model C reproducer in a similar way. The hinge block pin had been drilled out badly, leaving an oversized hole. I cleaned the brass, filled the hole with 60/40 solder then drilled and tapped an 0-80 thread. I was not completely sure how well the soft solder would work, but it it is a low stress application and it works very well. However, in this case soft solder would not stand up to the stress for any length of time.

Jim

Jim is correct, it can be fixed, but it would take a lot of effort. The leaf springs being forced all the way down, as well as the gap on one side, between the needle bar & pivot, are also disconcerting. I believe the OP meant well, but maybe needs a little more experience with these.