So we’ve recently inherited an old wind-up gramophone from my wife’s Great-Great-Grandmother, it was made in 1928. It’s been sitting in a shed for the past who knows how long, and has been fully submerged in a flood at least once. Emily’s Great-Aunt has been wanting someone to give it some TLC for a while now, but her children had no interest. Finally someone in the family heard about us and it’s made its way up here to me.
So, the good news is the motor (Motor. #69) seems to have survived the flooding, and I’ve stripped it all down, taken the spring out (Single spring motor), cleaned all the old grease and gunk out, regreased and oiled, and it seems to spin alright. I need to purchase a non-return spring for the crank though.
The Sounbox (Soundbox #4), hasn’t faired as well, the Mica looks like it’s got a few cracks in it, and will need to be replaced, the back to it was pot-metal, and seems to have glued itself to the rubber gasket behind it, and one of the screws sheared off when I tried to take it apart, so that’s going to take some swearing to make it work, but I’ve heard that the pot-metal may well just break apart and I might have to buy a whole new unit for the needle.
The turntable plate has rusted to all hell, but a wirebrush and some scotch-bright should fix that up, a new felt etc.
The wooden plate that it sits on is plywood, and has split to all hell in the flooding and I’ll have to make new one.
The wooden casing is Oak, and apparently has fallen apart once before and has been re-nailed together, with the very top being replaced with some chipboard. Oooo-boy, it was originally a wax finish, so I’m going to have to strip off all the old finish, check if it all lines up, and take the chipboard off the top and put a new oak topper on. Then refinish it.
So far, that’s as far as I’ve gotten, it’s going be a long journey, but the good news is I can get spares from some chap in the UK. I’m excited to restore a family heirloom like this.
