The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Hello everyone,

I have 3 Edison C250 disc phonographs. All have been recently greased and oiled. Two are very noisy, one is perfectly quiet. Here is a link to a short Youtube video to demonstrate: https://youtu.be/nJMBh_ecQnY

How can I fix this? I found some advice on an old thread about adjusting the governor, which I tried to do on one of the machines with no success. If 2 of my 3 machines have this issue, it's either pretty common or I'm just unlucky! If this fix is something that is likely beyond the ability of an unskilled hobbyist (myself) and really needs an expert touch to correct, is there a shop recommended to perform the repair? Any advice would be very much appreciated!

Sounds like the governor weights are lose and or coming in contact with something.
I haven't poked my nose in one of those machines in long time, but there should be two adjustable pins that are held in with set screws that the governor shaft spins on.
The pins have to be adjusted in a direction that move the weights away from what ever they on banging against, and achieving 80 RPM.

Something I always wanted to do and that is to weigh the governor weights, and make them all the same, a postal scale would work well.
If you remove the weight springs, they should be all the same lined up.
You're checking for tension here, if one of the springs is too weak or stronger then the others, then the weights won't move out evenly.

I went through a similar issue with my C250. Two things I did to remedy the issue was to swap governor shafts and make sure the new one had the ball bearing in place. Also make sure that if there is a bearing pin with a cupped end it is placed opposite the end with the flywheel. Second was to do as suggested and check governor weights and springs. I found that one of the springs on mine was bent ever so slightly out of alignment and when replaced the noise subsided significantly.