What's the deal with the VV-XII crank?

[GregVTLA]

As some of you know, I'm working to fully restore a VV-XII in really poor shape. I have the motor, and when I tried to wind it up with a VV-XVI female crank or a VV-XI female crank it just won't engage. It seems like the outer diameter of the crank isn't the right size. Does anybody have any knowledge about this? I was unaware that the VV-XII might have a one-off crank, but who knows I could be screwing it in wrong .

Thanks everyone,
Greg

[Jerry B.]

Any female threaded crank from a contemporary Victor machine should work on a VV-XII. I suspect either the crank or the winding shaft have been modified.

Jerry Blais

[GregVTLA]

I've taken a picture of the motor from my XVI and compared it to the one from the XII. Clearly, they are quite different. Does anyone have a picture of this part of an XII motor that I could compare to?

[Jerry B.]

Does a crank from a Victor II or III fit the winding shaft of the XII? If you don't have a contemporary horn machine, I would have expected the crank from your "L" door XVI to work.

Jerry

[Django]

My XII and my L-Door XVI machines have a ¼-24 thread. The cranks for my II and III have a 5/16 female thread, (I did not measure the pitch). The larger, earlier cranks will not engage. I believe that the XII crank is unique in overall size, (it is tiny). A crank from an L-Door machine could be shortened, drilled and tapped. It would at least be functional and look good, but still not be correct. That would probably have to be good enough unless you find a correct crank.

[Jerry B.]

A genuine XII crank is a really difficult one to find.

Jerry

[Jerry B.]

I took the crank off my Victor IV and tried it on my XII. It engaged the winding shaft too quickly so I suspect I was wrong about the threads being the same. The IV crank seemed to engage the winding shaft after two turns and the short crank engaged at about four turns. The shorter crank is a cut down crank donated by a parts Victrola.

The winding shaft is just inside the crank escutcheon so the distance from the threaded end to the bend is very short. That length is easy because vertically all cranks are longer in that distance. The critical length is from the turn to the knob. Because the XII is a table model the length from the end to the knob is reasonably shorter than most uprights. My replacement crank works perfectly and looks nice. That's your best bet until you luck into an original XII crank.

Jerry Blais

[GregVTLA]

Maybe I'll have to ask George Vollema. I was afraid that it had a unique crank, but at least an L door crank seems to be modifiable to work.

[GregVTLA]

Anybody have one?

[Zeppy]

I think your problem may be the motor and not the crank. I have a XII as well, and have two motors. The male connection the crank connects to actually extends past the motorboard. If a person was not careful removing and installing the motorboard into the cabinet, they can shear off the end of the connection. I have one motor where that actually happened. I'll take pictures of both the sheared and intact motors tonight and post them.