A 1920 Zonophone ‘hornless’ Gramophone.

This Zonophone definitely dates from 1919/20, because we came across a reproduction of an advert. for the 1919/20 range of Zonophone machines; this consisted of only 4 models. Ours is called the ‘Model 2’. It has a 12″ turntable and a double spring motor. The ‘Model 1’ predictably, had a 10″ turntable and a single spring motor. (Models 3 & 4 were horn versions of Models 1 and 2. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that that Models 1 & 2 were hornless versions of 3 & 4?) In any event, the horn versions would fetch a very great deal more money these days, than the hornless ones! By the way, I lifted the illustration from the late Ernie Bayly’s ‘The Talking Machine Review International’ No. 20-21, Feb.-Apr. 1973.

Right: the machine looked OK; what did it play like? Well, not so good. Apart from a slight buzzing from the sound-box, which can easily be cured, it was at once obvious that the springs were gummed up. A machine with a 12″ turntable and a double-spring motor was clearly intended to play two 12″ discs with one winding. The turntable, without load, would rotate for nearly 10 – 11 minutes on one winding, which indicated (I think) that the two springs were, fundamentally, in good shape.

However, the graphite grease, which was the long-term lubricant with which the springs were packed in 1919/20, had long since hardened into a tenacious ‘gook’ which had become the opposite of a lubricant. It was now more of a retardant! As the springs tried to unwind, their spiral turns were held together by the now semi-petrified sticky ‘gook’. So the record being played slowed down. Every so often there would occur a ‘thump’ as the spring turns suddenly released from each other & took up a new position. This is a well-known fault with old wind-up gramophones and need cause no concern, except you must not ignore it: otherwise it will get worse and eventually a gigantic ‘thump’ will strip a gear or something worse. To rectify it, all we need to do is to take out the springs from their drums, thoroughly clean them of their old-fashioned & petrified lubricant, and replace it by a modern equivalent. (After having complacently written this paragraph a month ago, you may be amused to learn that – as yet – I have not managed to get the springs out of their drums! 25-10-09.)

First the motor board is removed. It is held on by 9 screws, 3 on each side & 3 at the back. You will see that the ‘internal acoustic system’ is exceedingly simple; one might say primitive. There is no top to the horn; this is furnished by the bottom of the motor board; and the motor is actually inside the horn.

Here is the underside of the motor board with its double-spring motor. The arm that goes through the hole connects with the speed control lever on the upper side.

Here is a close-up of the main shaft. The winding handle screws into the shaft, and a ratchet & pawl prevent the shaft from rotating backwards. Note also the grub screw in the sleeve on the shaft. This holds the whole mechanism together, as it were. Before removing it, it is essential that the motor is completely run down. Even if the turntable has stopped rotating, there will still be some residual tension in the springs, which you will feel if you try to rotate a spring drum: it will take up a little backlash, then when released, will move back. You must spin the governor a little at a time until both springs are completely slack. But do not overdo this, as you may then disconnect the centre of a spring from its anchorage. Actually, to my great annoyance, I did do this myself! Fortunately, careful twiddling, accompanied by prayers to certain obscure & dubious spirits, Minor Godlings &c., fortuitously enabled the re-attachment of the spring.

Here is a close-up of the main ‘works’. The power comes from the gear A, which is on one side of the second spring drum. This drives the worm gear B, which is on the main spindle – the turntable fits over the end of this; the motor is of course upside down in this shot. The gear C is also mounted on the shaft, and drives the governor through the worm gear D, which is not plain to see here, sorry. E is the felt pad which limits the travel of the movable end disc of the governor. Obviously, as the governor spins faster and faster, the three balls move outwards, pulling the end disc down the spindle of the governor. But the disc can only go as far as the stop E. This pad must of course be kept well oiled to stop undue friction.

The motor is now dismantled. There are, commendably, very few parts! As we observed in the page on the Garrard motor, you could strip the motor down for cleaning & oiling without dismounting the governor, the adjustment of which is very delicate. This is also the case with this motor, and indeed with the other two motors that will appear later in this interminably boring series: you have been warned! 8^) So we may conclude that a properly designed motor will always have this feature. We did not dismount the main shaft either, as there was no need. We just wanted to clean and lubricate everything. It goes without saying that the two spring drums work in opposition to each other, and are connected by a pair of central lugs on one drum, which engage in corresponding slots on the other drum.

This has now been done, and here is the motor frame ready for reassembly. Another reason for not taking the main shaft out was if we did, we would have to take off the brass gear which drives the governor worm, and this is part of the governor set-up, which we don’t want to disturb, as it was running fine already.

There was a huge dollop of graphite/grease mixture between the two spring drums. We scraped it off and as you can see, after 90 years it had become quite solid, and the same would apply to the grease inside the drum. This is the point at which we should have opened the drums and (very carefully indeed) taken out the springs for a thorough cleaning. However, in spite of being instructed in the proper way of removing the closure plates by an expert on gramophone conservation and restoration, we could not loosen them. Oh, thirty years ago I would just hammer in a screwdriver and lever the disc out! But now, being older and more ‘careful’, I wanted to do it properly… Also, another word of warning, for heaven’s sake, don’t just pull a gramophone spring out of its housing – it will fly around and be very dangerous. People have been blinded and/or literally had their throats cut doing that in the past. This drum is about what, four inches in diameter? The uncoiled spring inside may well be four times that size, and is itching to instantly expand! Leave it alone, OK? If I ever get one of these face-plates off, I will attempt to make a video of how to take out – and replace – a spring. You need very strong thumbs to do that. There actually already is at least one video on YouTube about this procedure. I don’t know whether my thumbs are strong enough these days…

Here are the two cleaned spring drums, face-plate side up. The idea is, you have a rubber or leather mallet, and hit the other side repeatedly. This makes the spring bang against the face-plate (or whatever it’s called) and it gradually comes loose. Anyhow, I got a rubber mallet and bashed the lower right spring for about 10 minutes and nothing happened. I didn’t bash the upper left spring, because you can see it has the main gear fastened to it, and if you bent that, that would be curtains. So instead we took the wimp’s way out, and ran WD40 and 3-in-1 oil copiously into the drums, and hoped that would somehow loosen, or re-dissolve the sticky graphite grease inside. People used to soak the spring drums in petrol for a couple of days, which would probably do the same thing, but I don’t have the patience for that, sorry! Anyhow, our stratagem worked pretty well…

Here is the reassembled motor, looking very dry to be sure; but the spring drums were already well loaded inside with oil, and after lubricating all the other moving parts, the machine was put back together. One last important thing had to be done.

The sound-box was original, but the rubber gasket tubing had gone hard/perished/shrunk, so the diaphragm wasn’t held properly & the sound was thin & ‘whiny’. My expert & generous friend referred to above kindly sent me a long length of new tubing, hence the nice white pliable gasket rubber you see above. There is of course another piece of tubing behind the diaphragm. The box looks a little ‘tatty’ to be sure, but it works OK. And the machine itself, after completely cycling the springs 20 or 30 times over a few days, will now cheerfully play two 12" records at one winding, and even three 10" sides if the third one is not too loud!

So there you have it. If only you could hear it playing… Aha! Well, you can… I have never uploaded anything to YouTube before, but there’s a first time for everything, right? It’s very boring, but it’s just a first attempt. I think what you have to do, is video the disc playing, in order to get the acoustic sound track. Then, you strip out that sound track as a .wav file. You then make that .wav file the sound track for a series of shots taken at different angles, of the machine playing. Then of course you would have to ensure that the needle travels logically across the disc in the various separate shots. I think they call that ‘continuity’… h’mm… fascinating. Ye-e-e-s. Oh dear; perhaps a new ‘craze’ is taking me over! Help!

Well, I’ve done it. The original upload of yesterday, which was primitive in the extreme, has been deleted, though not before it attracted a positive observation from somebody! It has been replaced by a slightly more sophisticated version. If you click the link below, you can see this machine in action.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmHf_zgCIBQ

Page written 25th October 2009.

Modified 27th October 2009.