Phonograph

As mentioned in Garages, Mike, Cynthia, her mom, and me had gone to yard sales this past Saturday.

At an estate sale, I had found a phonograph (a.k.a. gramophone or record player) in the corner of the living room.

I asked one of the granddaughters there if I could use it. She agreed, and I went towards it. I grabbed a record, and set it on the spindle. 

I asked how I turned it on, and she said to turn the knob. I turned it, but nothing happened. She then asked, "Is it plugged in?" "Oh, it isn't!" Embarrassed that I hadn't seen that, I went and plugged it in. I turned the knob again, and the platter began to spin. "But how do you get the record to go down?" The lady who had greeted us came over and began to mess with it. She didn't know how to get it down, and ended up pressing the record down until it fell on the platter.

But for some reason, the playing arm wasn't finding the record. So again we messed with it, but the player was in a lost loop, never finding the record. In the end, an older woman, which I'm guessing was the mother of the younger women, asked if I wanted it for free. I agreed, and I thanked them because I had always wanted to own a record player. 

I went through the records of the man, and found that most were religious in nature. There were a few though, that I loved, including one that was titled Snoopy v.s. the Red Baron, Let Us Entertain You, which was pressed by RCA, and a single record that had this song on it. 

I was lit up like a fucking Christmas tree.

I also bought an old album full of records, and a few other things.

We spent the next few hours shopping and hanging out until Cynthia and Mike decided to drop me off at home.

It was around 8.30 when we got to my house. They helped me take all my things out, which was like six bags, along with the record player and its speakers.

I cleared some space off a desk I have in the garage for the player, and went ahead and set it up in there.

The player had captured so much attention, the garage was filled with six people, all looking at the player.

First off, we tried to figure out how to get the disk down on the platter.

So far, we thought you had to push the disk down onto the platter, but no. It seems that the pressure arm stabilizes the record on the spindle. Then we saw that the tonearm lifts up, and with a small metallic appendage, hits the record to see if there is one there. If there is no record, it goes back to it's original position and locks itself onto the player.

When we got the record down and the platter spinning, it was go time! We were so excited!

Slowly, the tone arm set itself down onto the record and it began to play. But there was a problem.

The sound sounded way too slow. 

The speed selector dial, which allows you to choose at what speed to play a record at (16, 33⅓, 45, and 78) was stuck. Hard as a fucking rock. This was noticed at the estate sale, but we thought it was all for show. If that was the case, then how did the player now what speed to play it at?

With force, we tried turning the dial, but nothing happened. We noticed that as you forced the dial to 33⅓, the record slowed, but we couldn't get it to budge. We were afraid to break it so we stopped.

At this point, I was frustrated, so in the meanwhile, Cynthia, Mike, and I went to copy a CD while my cousin took a crack at it.

Several times while us three were exchanging music, my cousin interrupted us because he had discovered something new about it. First it was a remote control that fit right onto the spindle. Then it was how the player assembly came off of the housing.

By midnight, Mike and Cynthia had gone home, and I was on Google trying to find something.

I had seen on YouTube this video, where the person had the exact same model I had, and it was playing like new. I had already been on eBay and I was really worried that I would never be able to fix the dial, so I sent the guy a message if he had too had trouble with the player and if he knew how it could be fixed.

After I had written the message, I headed back to the garage to tinker with it.

My cousin, along with my brother, was still messing with it when he asked me to hold up the removable assembly. He unlatched the locks, and made me hold the assembly while he examined the mechanisms. Damn thing was made of steel, fucking "solid-state" for sure.

We examined the dial and traced where each lever led to.

The first was a wheel with knuckle-shaped indentations where a small pin rested. I pointed out that maybe it moved, but the dial was stuck. From there, we traced it to a mechanism that lowered or raised, depending on the speed you selected. My cousin pointed out that maybe they were rock hard because they hadn't been lubricated in years, so he ran out to his car for a can of WD-40.

My cousin came back a few minutes later, and using the straw of the can, sprayed the knuckle-shaped selector and the mechanism that lowered and raised.

I went to turn the dial, and holy shit, it moved. Not only did it move, it moved with ease. Both parts moved as if they were brand new, or fresh off the assembly line. After cleaning up some of wandering WD-40, we latched the assembly back down onto the cabinet, and hoped to God it worked.

I grabbed a record that I had bought at the estate sale, and put it down onto the spindle, stabilized by the pressure arm. The tonearm swung out, and hit the record's edge with it's appendage. Suddenly, the record fell onto the platter, and began spinning at 33⅓. The tonearm came out and set itself on the edge of the record.

And then it began to play.

Out of the speakers set on a shelf, the sound flowed out of them. The orchestra flourished. And all I could do is stand there, mouth open in disbelief that my dream of owning a record player had finally come true. I owned a piece of history, and I couldn't believe I was listening to it.

I spent that night cleaning the garage to the sounds of West Side Story, an instrumental album that featured music from the film.

And in case you wondering how it played, here my phonograph playing a 1959 recording of the Broadway-version of The Sound of Music.

And in case you were wondering what the assembly looked like.

The assembly of my Magnavox 1P-2515, in case you were
wondering what I was working with