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Post by martinola on Mar 8, 2010 19:52:28 GMT -5
Hi Björn! First, let me say "well done!" on your wood patch on the motor frame. So many people would have replaced the whole part or refinished the whole case and destroyed its originality.
The reproducer carriage does indeed slide along the straight edge. (Just as you see in Shane's photo #4.) Before I play a cylinder, I clean off the reproducer carriage rod and oil it with very light machine oil. The carriage should slide with very little or no drag. I also spread a very tiny bit on the straight-edge (which should be clean & smooth).
Your lack of power may be a combination of different things rather than just one. Standard motors didn't have lots of extra torque even when new - so every little thing counts. I would check that the feedscrew isn't dirty or binding. (I usually lubricate that with light oil as well.) The top gear train should turn very freely. It certainly sounds like the half-nut has been tampered with. You may want to order a replacement half-nut and mount.
Before you go too far, an obvious place to check is the governor. The new pads may have thrown it out of adjustment. Does the speed seem close to right before it stops? The felt pads should have a very tiny bit of light oil on them.
After about 20 years, grease tends to stiffen-up, so I wouldn't be surprised if the spring needs to come out for cleaning and re-greasing. None of this is terribly difficult or complicated. It is just a dirty and time-consuming process. Be patient and trust your instincts. You may have to spend some time in observing and adjusting, but you'll get it. Just remember never to work on the motor while it's wound-up (especially the governor and mainspring). Let us know how it's going.
Regards, Martin
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Post by klangfix on Mar 9, 2010 19:37:03 GMT -5
Thanks for all advise! Finally it is now running. :-) As you told me, Martin, it was many small things. I had to move the bearings of the governer slightly to get it to rotate completely free. Also I put some oil on the felt brakes. But the most important thing was probably the feed screw and the halfnut force on the feedscrew. For some reason this carriage puts some extra force on the feed screw if the the feed nut bar is mounted straight without any washers. But, if I put a small washer underneath one of the screws, then the carriage finally rest on the straight edge, leaving only a little force on the halfnut. This was obviously not in balance, since the carriage not even touched the straight edge when I got it. BTW, the straight edge was repainted, so any contact would have been a disaster. I removed the paint with 600 grit paper until it was smooth and clean again. Now I am only waiting for my horn replica and my model H reproducer. In the mean time I would like to show you some pictures of how I glued together the upper frame. First I cut a piece of oak in the right width and thickness as the damaged front piece. Then I cut the old and the new pieces at one time to get the angles exactly the same. In this way, you do not have to think about keeping the saw exactly straight in any way. I put both pieces in a vise and then I cut a similar notch in the new piece as in the old. This notch was made a little deeper and acted as a place to glue a hidden enforcement. I made an enforcement piece out of maple that I happen to have. This is actually wood for putting underneath a guitar bridge, so it is really strong. The two pieces were now glued together. Force was applied in two directions. This is how it looked after glueing. Now I had to make the new piece fit the old one. Testing and carving and testing again... Time to glue. Liquid hide glue was used. This has never let me down. I use it on guitars often. After some hand carving and sandpaper work... I used brown dye mixed in water. However the color was not right so I had to touch it up with some water colors. To mask the joint I even used a brown felt tip pen to paint som grain going across the joint. This makes the joint more invisable. After many layers of different paint, I finally painted the whole frame with some shellack. After that the shellack was slightly polished with some very fine steel wool, to take away some of the shiny glossy surface. Done!
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Post by martinola on Mar 10, 2010 1:29:44 GMT -5
Beautiful work! Thank you for the photos. I am always glad to see details of repairs, and these are wonderful. Keep us posted.
Martin
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Post by Edison Restorer 64 on Mar 10, 2010 13:05:05 GMT -5
What you have there is a 2 Min Phonograph This plays 2 min Black Wax cylinders I do not think it was ment to play the 4 min Blue Amberols
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Post by matty on Mar 10, 2010 15:34:40 GMT -5
I think Bjorn has purchased the 2/4 min gearing for the machine, but is restoring the case first.
Thanks Bjorn for the photos too. I'm sure they'll be a great help to those of us who haven't had experience with replacing missing sections of timber. It's coming along really well. I'm sure the fellow you inherited it from would be very proud.
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Post by klangfix on Mar 10, 2010 16:38:10 GMT -5
Here is a small clip when it plays a 2 minute cylinder. As you may see I have already installed the gear for the 4 minute drive and, both works allright. Now I am hoping to get my model H reproducer soon. www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJOyEUUEzGs
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Post by bob27556 on Mar 14, 2010 18:20:18 GMT -5
Bjorn,
Your cabinet repair is excellent. You are obviously a highly skilled woodworker. I'm presently working on a difficult repair that will require some tough color matching and I'm not familiar with using watercolors. Can you share some of your knowledge with us by describing the techniques you use? Any advice would be appreciated.
Bob
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Post by klangfix on Mar 15, 2010 10:20:10 GMT -5
I have used watercolors on some minor repair work on different guitars etc. If you use watercolors, the surface must be clean and free from any varnish, laquer or oil. The watercolors are in general rather OK, when it comes to aging. I have water color drawings made in the 1930:s that are still OK. However UV light is never good for any type of colors. When using watercolors I mix and blend colors and test it first on a piece of scrap wood. It is important that the scrap wood has the same raw color tone than the object that you intend to touch up. Then there is another type of color that I really do not know the correct english word for. It is a kind of colored dye powder that is mixed with water or alcohol. We call it "bets". I think it is called "stain". You can see the Swedish product specification here: herdins.webdoc.nu/herdins_asp/pdf/be051_sv.pdfThis is the most used watercolor or dye that is used on clean wood, if you want to have the surface in a different color before you treat it with a varnish or laquer. I have used this for instance in this guitar restoration: ackegura.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=gitarrer&action=display&thread=4255 This is easy to apply, but it comes in only a few colors. You have to mix and blend for yourself to get the right brown color shade. In the example with the edison standard, I did not really succeed with only "bets". Then I tryed the water colors, but I was still not satisfied, so I cheated and used a brown felt tipped ink pen. With the pen I managed to draw rather convincing grain stripes into the wood. Even if the new wood also were oak, the striped appearance did partly come from the dye and partly from the aging of the shellack. BTW, the skill of using shellack is a huge area of knowledge which I still not master completely. I am struggling with french polishing some guitar parts right know and I feel that it is really hard to master. On the Edison standard, I did not have to achieve a perfect shiny surface, the important thing was to get a surface that looked similar to the old one and that was far from a grand piano surface. A small warning. First try with a few drops of water on a hidden place to see if something happens with the original laquer. There can be a reaction making the original varnish go pale white. If so, there are methods of reversing this process as well, but I have not tested it myself. If the surface is not entirely free from old paint or varnish, you will have to improvise by using different dye powder mixed to varnish or shellack (depending of what originally was used). Use only very small amounts of dye, otherwise the shellack becomes non-translucent and the surface looks "painted". Apply many thin layers, and remember that shellack itself is rather brown/yellow, so stop the dying before you think the surface is ready. Let the last darkening of the surface be made with the shellack. Always try on a piece of scrap wood first.
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Post by bob27556 on Mar 15, 2010 17:51:30 GMT -5
Wow! Thanks for all that information. Now I have another option to consider when trying to match stains. I'll have to practice on some veneer scaps.
'Bets' is probably what we call anilline wood dye here. At the moment I've only got black and green powder so will have to shop for some shades of brown.
Beautiful job you did on that guitar!
Bob
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shellophone
Junior Member
Stand close enough and you can hear the ocean!
Posts: 69
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Post by shellophone on Mar 15, 2010 18:32:39 GMT -5
Bob, If you use a water-based dye, the water will swell the wood and raise the grain which will require additional sanding when dry, and re-staining. If you use an alcohol-based dye, the grain will not raise.
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Post by klangfix on Mar 16, 2010 8:50:10 GMT -5
Hi shellophone, You are right about the swelling of the wood. However, one trick is to pre-swell the wood by applying some water to it before using the stain. After the application of water, you can let it dry for some time and then do a little sanding. This could be repeated several times until you see no more swelling. after that the stain can be applied without any noticable swelling. This is actually a recommended method when using "bets" or stain from the product supplier. As you might have seen already, there are some negative sides with using water based colors. The benefit that I see is that it is easy to make quick color changes just by mixing different colors and sometimes whipe of exessive stain with a damp cloth. here is another example of using water colors on clean wood. ackegura.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=gitarrer&action=display&thread=5541&page=1In this case the surface had a three-tone sunburst where each layer of nitrocellulose laquer had a different color. The color was not originally painted on the guitar. Dealing with a scratch damage makes it hard to repaint it without using an airbrush. With water colors you can do gradual staining of the wood and then put a clear coat of laquer on top. It is not perfect, but it gives an acceptable result.
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