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Well after a very successful Victrola VV 8-12 restore, i think its time to try my luck on a Edison B-80 diamond disk player. This unit was previously worked on and the top lid has been sanded and the finish removed, just my type of project. I have already disassembled the cabinet, motor and the platter off the machine and starting the work on those parts. First thing i did was to re-grease the single spring motor ( a little under powered as i have read about the B80) and rebuild the motor completely as there is quite of bit of corrosion on the motor.

As there are few pics of the horn, it looks like Edison did a faux wood grain pattern on the horn and i thought about doing that but decided to use a black finish instead (I know its not the right color but looks pretty good). Anyways, most of the paint on the horn has flaked away and I think the new black finish looks pretty good. Ill post a few more pics as the restore progresses.

Heres the photobucket link for more pics

http://s1179.photobucket.com/albums/x38 ... nd%20Disk/

Brandt

Finished up the B-80 that I picked up from Covah and went ahead and refinished the cabinet as the lid was sanded down by the owner before, i decided not to try to do the simulated wood grain on the horn as I thought the black looks better for the unit. The finish job came out a bit lighter than I wanted but the over all unit looks nice. Played several records and am amazed how nice the sound from the diamond reproducer sounds compared to my Victor machines and wondered why they diamond disk machines were not more popular than the Victor machines. But I will say the craftsmanship on the Victors are far superior to the Edison machines and the motor systems much easier to rebuild. I placed a group of pics of the rebuild to my photobucket.

My next little project will be a Edison Standard that I picked up and looking forward to getting this machine up and running.

Oh the link,

http://s1179.photobucket.com/albums/x38 ... nd%20Disk/

The finish on that B80 is absolutely astounding! Awesome work!

Send me your address so I can send my B80 to you! And my B60, and my...... and my...... and my......

yes, that restoration came out really well. I'm curious, does that machine have any of the belt slippage issues that confront these B-80's from time to time? and would there originally have been grill cloth beneath the openings in the playing area around the tonearm? I've never seen that before.

brianu wrote:and would there originally have been grill cloth beneath the openings in the playing area around the tonearm? I've never seen that before.

Yes, they did, mine had cloth there that was original...briankeith can likely tell us the color, but as I recall it was a pale gold.

Sean

The original cloth was a dark green on this one but I had some of the gold left over from another project and used it. There was no cloth on the front grill but there was some on the deck . I think the gold actually looks better. My leather belt hasn't been slipping so far. Now I have to find a place in the home to put it.

That machine was NASTY! Great work! My main concern was the original reproducer, which I never had, should be the kind with a volume control flap in the neck. Otherwise this has no volume control.

They didn't all come with the volume choke reproducers, originally.