78 wind up record player

[Blackout]

Finally getting to play music from the era of a lot of my furniture. Someone had stripped the cover and I'm experimenting to get colour into the shellac and hopefully match the rest of the record player when it is cleaned. Will have to cut a new front for where the sound comes out.
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This is the first attempt with darkened shellac
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Need to work out how to clean this one with out damaging anything
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These will be going into a room dedicated to silky furniture

Finally learning to blend the colours and match pieces.
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Here you can see the lid that has new shellac lased with Japan Brown tint and finished with Carnubia brown wax. On this side the lower part is still the old darkened shellac that needs to be matched into.

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For these two photos the area below the lid has been cleaned back by rubbing with '0000' steel wool and finally polished with Carnubia brown wax. Finally happy to have found a less invasive technique to briging the old furniture back to life.

This will be the technique to finish this unit and match some other silky oak wood in the same room.

To think when I first started I would sand back the silky oak and use new shellac but it never really worked right especially with the plywood.

[Chief Tiff]

Evaporust will clean up the rust then you need to gently polish it. If you’re feeling adventurous you could have a crack at polishing it back to a mirror finish and then replating it with nickel, there are plenty of vids on you tube for that.

New iron gramaphone needles can still be purchased from a couple of online sellers, each needle is only supposed to be used once which is why there are usually two little metal cups next to the arm. One is a shallow dish that you fill with new needles, the other has a very deep removable lip that acts as a small bin for the used ones.

[Blackout]

Evaporust will clean up the rust then you need to gently polish it. If you’re feeling adventurous you could have a crack at polishing it back to a mirror finish and then replating it with nickel, there are plenty of vids on you tube for that.

New iron gramaphone needles can still be purchased from a couple of online sellers, each needle is only supposed to be used once which is why there are usually two little metal cups next to the arm. One is a shallow dish that you fill with new needles, the other has a very deep removable lip that acts as a small bin for the used ones.

I have the cups and lots of needles but had no idea they could only be used once. Nickel plating may be the final way to go. Thank you for the very helpful information

[auscab]

A friend of mine used old gramophone needles in the base of an oil stone box to stop it moving around on his bench top . He told me they are hardened steel . He just inserted them backwards in a hole at each corner so it’s sharp tip was just sticking out . It seemed a bit of a cool re use to me
Rob

[Chief Tiff]

I'm pretty sure they're made from iron rather than steel but I stand ready to be corrected. That's a real cool use for old needles; beats hammering in pins and then trying to sharpen them again. I wonder how they'd go in marking gauges?

My daughter inherited a gramophone in working condition along with many records. In those days they were supplied with plain paper sleeves but some enterprising companies used to print advertisements on them. Gramophone manufacturers and record shops were the most prevalent but I distinctly remember one for needles; these were advertised as being extremely long last and could cope with up to ten plays before needing to be replaced.