The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Hi,
I'm new to the forum here. I have plenty of experience with 33s & 45s and even a bit of experience with 78s, but only with electric machines. This is my first wind-up - a Birch portable, Model 600! Right now, it does play and sounds pretty decent. However, one of the three governor springs is broken. I've searched all over for a replacement (three, actually, because I understand that's usually how it's done so it stays balanced) but keep coming up empty.

I considered creating my own springs out of feeler gauge but the weights appear to be riveted onto the springs, so I don't know that I can do that...

Anyone here know where I could source replacements?

Thanks a bunch,

-Michael

Hi Michael, the Birch machine is pretty common so good news you should be able to find parts!
Try www.thephonographshop.com because Brian Parlier has lots of parts. Contact either him or George Vollema of Great Lakes Antique Phonograph and you should have better luck.

The governor springs on these small motors do turn up broken sometimes. I had a Birch, and some Waters-Conley Phonolas with the same motor, and they don't always work without some spare parts.

But they are light and portable and fun which is good. Welcome to the forum and the hobby.
Charles

VanEpsFan1914 wrote: Sun Aug 20, 2023 6:03 pm Hi Michael, the Birch machine is pretty common so good news you should be able to find parts!
Try www.thephonographshop.com because Brian Parlier has lots of parts. Contact either him or George Vollema of Great Lakes Antique Phonograph and you should have better luck.

The governor springs on these small motors do turn up broken sometimes. I had a Birch, and some Waters-Conley Phonolas with the same motor, and they don't always work without some spare parts.

But they are light and portable and fun which is good. Welcome to the forum and the hobby.
Charles

Hi Charles,
Thank you for your response. I already reached out to Brian a few weeks ago and unfortunately, he doesn't have any replacements. I just reached out to George now so hopefully I have better luck there.

Looking forward to getting this unit up and running,

-Michael

VanEpsFan1914 wrote: Sun Aug 20, 2023 6:03 pm Hi Michael, the Birch machine is pretty common so good news you should be able to find parts!
Try www.thephonographshop.com because Brian Parlier has lots of parts. Contact either him or George Vollema of Great Lakes Antique Phonograph and you should have better luck.

The governor springs on these small motors do turn up broken sometimes. I had a Birch, and some Waters-Conley Phonolas with the same motor, and they don't always work without some spare parts.

But they are light and portable and fun which is good. Welcome to the forum and the hobby.
Charles

Hi Charles,
I reached out to George and heard back. My new spring arrived today and my Birch is now singing quite nicely! Thank you for the suggestions on where to find new weights!

Unfortunately, I now have another issue: I've got quite a bit of a skipping issue. It's mostly as the needle nears the center of the record. I'm using quiet needles now instead of the medium ones I was using before. Perhaps this is why I'm having this happen, though I'd imagine it probably indicates a tracking issue that maybe the medium needle was minimizing. Anything to check here?

Thanks,

-Michael

Hi again Michael! Glad George came through with the spare parts.

The skipping issues are pretty easily fixed. Quiet needles are fine on old machines. I'm using one now on my Brunswick console Panatrope, playing Glenn Miller. But a Birch has one thing a Panatrope doesn't: a E. Toman diecast tonearm made out of pot metal. Try making sure it's free to swivel across all the whole record as well as up and down. They often swell slightly and create a sticky spot. Yours may be trying to do that but it's fixable if you wetsand the mating surfaces of the sticking parts with a bit of fine sandpaper and a few drops of oil.

Of course this is very difficult on the tonearm itself as the snap ring inside is likely stuck, and potmetal is brittle. Better use snap ring pliers, good ones.

Or it could be your records are dirty, or you are using needles too much. Steel needles are single use.

VanEpsFan1914 wrote: Tue Sep 05, 2023 6:44 pm Hi again Michael! Glad George came through with the spare parts.

The skipping issues are pretty easily fixed. Quiet needles are fine on old machines. I'm using one now on my Brunswick console Panatrope, playing Glenn Miller. But a Birch has one thing a Panatrope doesn't: a E. Toman diecast tonearm made out of pot metal. Try making sure it's free to swivel across all the whole record as well as up and down. They often swell slightly and create a sticky spot. Yours may be trying to do that but it's fixable if you wetsand the mating surfaces of the sticking parts with a bit of fine sandpaper and a few drops of oil.

Of course this is very difficult on the tonearm itself as the snap ring inside is likely stuck, and potmetal is brittle. Better use snap ring pliers, good ones.

Or it could be your records are dirty, or you are using needles too much. Steel needles are single use.

Hi Charles,
Thanks for such a quick reply. I've read a little bit about the pot metal tonearm problem and suspected that might be the case. Indeed, mine tightens up ever so slightly about halfway through the side of the record, where the skipping problem often starts.

The difficulty on my machine is that it appears that the only way to take the arm off is from below and the cardboard 'sound tunnel' thing is stapled and glued to the bottom of the board. I'm nervous that I might end up destroying the tunnel as I attempt to remove it. Is this a normal thing or something I need to be extra careful with? Any tips?

Good news is that the swivel joint in the tonearm (where it allows the soundbox to be rotated up and down to put the needle on the record) isn't binding at all and actually moves very freely.

I'm really impressed with how decent this little machine sounds. We were swing dancing to Bing Crosby's "Swingin' On a Star" this afternoon and it sounded pretty fab!

Thanks again,

-Michael

VanEpsFan1914 wrote: Tue Sep 05, 2023 6:44 pm Hi again Michael! Glad George came through with the spare parts.

The skipping issues are pretty easily fixed. Quiet needles are fine on old machines. I'm using one now on my Brunswick console Panatrope, playing Glenn Miller. But a Birch has one thing a Panatrope doesn't: a E. Toman diecast tonearm made out of pot metal. Try making sure it's free to swivel across all the whole record as well as up and down. They often swell slightly and create a sticky spot. Yours may be trying to do that but it's fixable if you wetsand the mating surfaces of the sticking parts with a bit of fine sandpaper and a few drops of oil.

Of course this is very difficult on the tonearm itself as the snap ring inside is likely stuck, and potmetal is brittle. Better use snap ring pliers, good ones.

Or it could be your records are dirty, or you are using needles too much. Steel needles are single use.

I appear to have hit another snag... I ended up just trying to carefully pry the sound tunnel off, and I was pretty successful. However, what I found is that the arm is actually riveted to the wooden base. Unless I'm missing something, of course. But it seems like those rivets are going to have to come out to take the arm apart, no?

Update: I was able to take the bottom sound piece off last night and realized that taking those rivets out was not necessary to separate the arm. I was able to get the snap ring off and separate the arm.

After some sanding, it now fits like a glove and moves very freely. However, it appears I'm not the first one to give this a go - a bunch of the snap ring mating surface was gone and as careful as I was in taking the ring off, the last little bit that was left basically crumbled into nothing.

So it appears I no longer have a way to secure the snap ring on to the arm, which is a problem because it now sits forward in its mount and causes a bunch of excess drag.

Is this a fixable problem or am I going to have to try to locate a replacement arm?