Cleaning an aluminum Columbia tone arm

Jerry B. · Post by **Jerry B.** » Thu Jul 12, 2012 12:04 pm

A few months ago I offered this Columbia tone for sale in the Trader section. It didn't sell so I took it to Union where it didn't even get picked up or examined. I thought before I take it to Los Angeles for the APS sale, I would attempt to clean it a bit. I started by knocking off the rough areas with a brass wheel in my cordless drill. Next, I used some 0000 steel wool with some Mother's Mag Polish. The results are quite dramatic considering my twenty minute investment. Jerry Blais

Post by **alang** » Thu Jul 12, 2012 1:47 pm

That turned out real nice. Great job!

Andreas

FloridaClay · Post by **FloridaClay** » Thu Jul 12, 2012 2:26 pm

It looks quite handsome. Should get some play next time.

Clay

HisMastersVoice · Post by **HisMastersVoice** » Thu Jul 12, 2012 2:30 pm

Jerry, was this arm originally plated? I have a similar one from a Harmony machine I'm working on that has some flaking near the reproducer end.

Jerry B. · Post by **Jerry B.** » Thu Jul 12, 2012 3:52 pm

Brandon had a really good question about plating. Yes, I think they were nickel plated but it must be difficult to nickel plate aluminum. Perhaps someone with more technical knowledge would like to comment. Because this was a spare arm, I thought it would be a good candidate for an experiment. The results were good enough to suggest removing bad nickel and polishing the aluminum. I spent just a little time on the effort and it could look even better with a little more time. Jerry

Post by **alang** » Thu Jul 12, 2012 4:38 pm

I think I read on the Caswell website that you cannot directly plate nickel onto aluminum, the plating solution is too harsh. One would first plate aluminum with copper or zinc and then nickel plate on top of it.
Second hand Internet knowledge.

Andreas

Jerry B. · Post by **Jerry B.** » Thu Jul 12, 2012 5:51 pm

It makes me wonder why Columbia didn't just polish the aluminum and give it a coat of lacquer. Jerry

estott · Post by **estott** » Thu Jul 12, 2012 6:05 pm

Jerry B. wrote:It makes me wonder why Columbia didn't just polish the aluminum and give it a coat of lacquer. Jerry

Polished aluminum would never have the desired high gloss you get with nickel.

Jerry B. · Post by **Jerry B.** » Fri Jul 13, 2012 10:06 am

I realize that aluminum can't be polished to as high a finish as nickel. Victor's tone arms started as brass and Columbia's started as aluminum. Both metals can be polished to look very nice. I suspect that a nickel finish was a popular trend at the time and it gave a uniformity of finish when parts of a different base metal were used on a machine. Jerry

Cleaning an aluminum Columbia tone arm

Cleaning an aluminum Columbia tone arm

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