The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

A neighbour just asked me to service his Columbia 124a.
It's a neat little machine with a small "bifurcated folded metal internal stereoscopic horn, that if straightened would be 9 feet long".
I'm simply going to dismantle all the parts, clean, lube and polish it. I turned it upside down and found some weird chalky trails, splashes all over it. I suspect it's some sort of bug which made trails all along any unfinished raw timber. It has not entered the timber, not even the middle plywood which is sandwiched between 5mm of solid mahogany. I have scraped it off and cleaned it.
Does anyone know what did this? I'm thinking of covering the raw timber (inside and bottom of the cabinet) with a preservative just to make sure it is not active with the bug. I've never seen anything like it. The termite trails I have seen are usually sandy tunnels, where as this is solid and chalky.

Of course over here in England we have very different insects when compared to those of Australia.

The only thing I can think of from England is that they might have been caused by snails - like 'snail trails'.

I am not convinced that the marks are caused by 'bugs' though as they look like splashes of something ?

Looks more like paint or detergent splash to me.

CarlosV wrote: Thu May 02, 2024 6:23 am Looks more like paint or detergent splash to me.

Me too.

CarlosV wrote: Thu May 02, 2024 6:23 am Looks more like paint or detergent splash to me.

Agreed. Unless the BUGS are GIANTS and crawl around spraying furniture with cleaning products, I don't see the residue left behind coming from any bug currently known to man.

Woodworm? edisonplayer.

No holes at all, I even used a digital microscope just incase they were tiny. Those dots are just spots of whatever it is and simply scraped off. Here are some more pics. It has obviously been refinished as someone varnished over the stuff.
It's as if there was an accident with some plaster when the cabinet was being constructed and they carried on assembling it anyway without cleaning it up. I'm baffled.

Looks like traces of old furniture stripper to me.

Yeah, old furniture stripper.
I bet if you took some methyl hydrate and some steel wool to it, it would disappear.
Be careful not to get the alcohol anywhere else.

It comes straight off and yes after cleaning with meths it's mostly gone.