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CntryBoy777
Herd Master
I want to say it looks like the guts of an old jukebox player. 
CntryBoy777 - The Lazy A** Acres Adventures
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greybeard
Herd Master
Quite old. A couple decades older than I am for sure.I think I'll need the whole thing to have a chance. I don't recognize it as is (and might not given the whole thing either!!).
Looks solidly built, no plastic parts to break. Must be old
Sorry, your answer did not win you The Wurlitzer Prize, but consolation points awarded if you know the significance and origin of those 3 words..but don't feel bad. Few people have ever seen the insides of one of these machines.
It's the guts of a Victrola, or more accurately, a Victor Talking Machine.
You are probably more accustomed to seeing one with one of these items on the outside of it, but mine doesn't use one, because it's a portable unit:
The first pic is a 3 weight mechanical governor, that serves to maintain a (relatively) steady rpm of the output shaft of the power unit, a unit which, you can easily hold in one hand.
Here's another part of it, called a 'reproducer'.
And the whole thing, in disassembled state.
The large light brown piece is the air horn, which takes the place of the external horn one is accustomed to seeing one the larger Victrolas. It's proper location is inside the little suitcase, wrapped around under the turntable, and the it amplifies the sound which exits the rear of the suitcase thru a rectangular hole. It is NOT a speaker, tho the hole is covered with speaker cloth and many people think it works like a speaker. The little indentations and valleys in the record grooves produce a vibration, as the steel needle picks them up, transmits that vibration to a diaphragm in the reproducer, and and it's that diaphragm that makes the actual 'sound'.
It's quite a marvel of it's time actually. The cylinder in the second picture houses the tension spring which is wound by the crank you see in the last picture. Without the governor, the output shaft and turntable would spin wildly out of control and of course play the first portion of the 78rpm record at a high and unintelligible speed, and very quickly expend all the energy of the wound spring.
It was very sluggish when I first got it, as the power unit was coated in the original lube, which had become a thick almost hard grease over the decades, about the consistency of cosmolene. Once it was cleaned up, and I finally got the spring re-caged, it worked much better. (a warning. If you ever get one, open the spring cylinder with an abundance of caution--they make the spring from a lawnmower's recoil starter look like child's play)
I have built an exact-to-size wooden case for it to replace the old fabric covered portable suitcase, and as soon as I get the thing reassembled, it will be a permanent unit, with a plexiglass top..
Bruce
Herd Master
VERY cool @greybeard !!
You'll have to put up a YouTube video of it when you get it working.
You'll have to put up a YouTube video of it when you get it working.
- Thread starter
- #2,404
CntryBoy777
Herd Master
Has it been past down thru your generation?....that is really a Neat piece there GB.....can ya still find needles for it?
Poka_Doodle
Herd Master
So would you like to explain those to me ?You sure are OLD!I bet people like @luvmypets, @Poka_Doodle and @newton the goat have NO idea what to do with those.
Bruce
Herd Master
Sure @Poka_Doodle
You see WAY back before you were born, there were these things called phonographs, AKA record players. The first common records (disks made of shellac) ran at a speed of 78 Revolutions Per Minute and were 10" in diameter. About 3 minutes of music per side. Next came 33s (actually 33 1/3 RPMs) 10" but more commonly 12" in diameter and made of vinyl - 20 or more minutes per side. About the same time as the 33's came out there was a smaller record - 7 inches in diameter running at 45 RPM with 5 minutes per side. 1 song per side, popular if you wanted a single (one on the A side and one on the B side) rather than a whole album and good for jukeboxes. The 45's have big holes in the middle. Why? No idea, maybe @greybeard or @CntryBoy777 knows. But to play them on a standard turntable that has a pin for the small hole in the 33s and 78s, you need an adapter that snaps into the center of the 45. That is what @CntryBoy777 posted. You could buy a lot of them and keep them in the record or pop them out of one to use in another.
https://www.history-of-rock.com/record_formats.htm
You next musical history lesson will be on "portable" music - 8 track and cassettes (1960's). Still WAY before your time!
You see WAY back before you were born, there were these things called phonographs, AKA record players. The first common records (disks made of shellac) ran at a speed of 78 Revolutions Per Minute and were 10" in diameter. About 3 minutes of music per side. Next came 33s (actually 33 1/3 RPMs) 10" but more commonly 12" in diameter and made of vinyl - 20 or more minutes per side. About the same time as the 33's came out there was a smaller record - 7 inches in diameter running at 45 RPM with 5 minutes per side. 1 song per side, popular if you wanted a single (one on the A side and one on the B side) rather than a whole album and good for jukeboxes. The 45's have big holes in the middle. Why? No idea, maybe @greybeard or @CntryBoy777 knows. But to play them on a standard turntable that has a pin for the small hole in the 33s and 78s, you need an adapter that snaps into the center of the 45. That is what @CntryBoy777 posted. You could buy a lot of them and keep them in the record or pop them out of one to use in another.
https://www.history-of-rock.com/record_formats.htm
You next musical history lesson will be on "portable" music - 8 track and cassettes (1960's). Still WAY before your time!
Poka_Doodle
Herd Master
Thanks!
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- #2,408
CntryBoy777
Herd Master
I believe the reason the 45s had the big hole, is that the longer Stem wasn't added til after it came out....everybody had the beige and brown buckled boxes that had a player in it....those had the wide holes for single play, and a quick Flip to the other side.....the player was reasonable....lasted forever....and dropping, bumping, or dragging it didn't hurt it. This was also as the jukebox came along and there were many "1 Hit Wonders".....and the albums came out a bit later on, the Stem became longer and allowed 3-4 albums to be played on 1side in succession without having to touch it.....allowing more social time and dancing.....ya see, back then, many radio stations went off the air at 6-8pm everyday....there weren't any video games, computers, cell phones, no calling long distance, and you were Lucky to get more than 1 channel on TV....in Black and White....no color.....it went off the air at 10:30pm. Most families had a couple of board games and a couple of boxes of 1500pc jigsaw puzzels....and a deck of cards. That was entertaiment back then, so when music changed in the 50s as long as ya had power or batteries ya could listen to Something....but, then there would be an argument that would start over what song was to be played next....and Mom would step-in and turn it off and made ya get in the bed.....
greybeard
Herd Master
Bruce..do you know why 8 track players were called 8 track players?
It's because before cassettes, & before 8 tracks, there were 4 track players, but no one ever called them 4 track players..They were simply called cartridge tape players because they had no predecessor marketed to the consumer**...until 8tracks came out and then they music industry had to start calling each according to how many tracks there were.
**There were 3 track player/recorders, but they were never marketed to the general public. They were primarily used to record and play radio station jingles and commercials.
It's because before cassettes, & before 8 tracks, there were 4 track players, but no one ever called them 4 track players..They were simply called cartridge tape players because they had no predecessor marketed to the consumer**...until 8tracks came out and then they music industry had to start calling each according to how many tracks there were.
**There were 3 track player/recorders, but they were never marketed to the general public. They were primarily used to record and play radio station jingles and commercials.
greybeard
Herd Master
Not exactly...It's kinda the other way around.
The spindle on all the phonographs and the hole in the middle of the records had long prior been standardized at just over 1/4" but the spindles were all short--the automatic turntable had yet to be invented. When the first 33 1/3 LPs came out from Columbia in the late 40s, people were already complaining about buying a record with a lot of songs on it but only a few they really liked. In 1948, RCA brought out the 45 rpm 2 sided single and their own phonograph with a tall fat spindle on it, that you could stack about ten 45s on and they would drop down on to the turntable as the tone arm moved out of the way like all modern turntables do now, but the 45s didn't need the balance arm that sits on top of the LPs to keep them from leaning over to one side. This was the 1st auto turntable & was invented by RCA specifically for their 45s and RCA banked on it's popularity to beat Columbia. Of course, you could not play 33 1/3 LPs or 78 rpm singles on RCA's new phonographs. RCA hoped people would opt to purchase only one phonograph, and it would be theirs--RCA very much disliked Columbia and hoped to make them irrelevant.
Most of the units RCA sold were portables and it's these fat spindle players that really began the portable record player thing.
You can see some of these portable RCA auto turntables here:
http://www.everythingradio.com/products/rca-45-players-for-sale/
Of course, things didn't work out like RCA wanted, and within only a couple years, they ended up selling licenses to Columbia and other record companies to use RCA technology for 33 1/3 LP auto turntables and RCA then reverted back to the 1/4" spindle with an adapter on it to be able to play both 45s and LPs.
Why the big hole in 45s? Remember..this was the first autoload turntable--prior to that, you had to stop the turntable, remove the old record, drop a new one on the spindle and then restart the turnatable and place the tone arm on the record. For the 45 rpm record to play right, it has to spin up quickly to full rpm as soon as it dropped down on the already rotating turntable. A small hole would wear out pretty quickly because of the relatively small surface area around the spindle, but a larger hole presented much more surface to the spindle and wear would not be a factor.
