The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I bought this Edison home model D off of eBay years ago and finally got around to cleaning it up on and off the past year. Thanks to the wonderful suggestion of evapo rust and a lot of elbow grease, I’ve had success. As you can see this phono was in pretty bad shape. It’s missing a few pieces and I plan to keep it as a display piece.
I have just the wood piece that goes between the underside gears and the bed plate. (There was no box with it. Only that piece) I want to use it but wasn’t sure how to clean it up or if I should coat it with anything like poly to preserve it? I should mention I don’t want to sand it down and restain or anything. I’d like to keep it as original as possible, just imagine it needs to be cleaned. What do you all do?

If you want to " keep it as original as possible", of course coating it with anything "poly" is totally nonsense.

Honestly, the finish of that wood panel is so far gone that it has nothing to do with the original any longer, if you want to "preserve it" just keep it as it is. You either rehaul it the proper way, or you just leave it untouched - anything else or in between doesn't make much sense in my opinion.

I'm guessing the wood that you want to preserve is the dark wood frame that is in the middle two pics (possibly a top and underside pic).
I can understand that you want to keep the patina characteristics.
I would suggest a quick light wash with soapy water to give it a general clean, minimizing the time it's kept wet so the water doesn't seep into to fibers. Then maybe a beeswax coating to give it a shine and bring out some colour. I'm not an expert woodworker, so perhaps run this by a restorer, and definitely try on some scrap to make sure you are happy with the approach.

Clean the wood gently using Goop or Gojo waterless and cleaner without pumice, and 0000 steel wool. Wipe off with a cotton cloth.