How to repair 1948 Wards Airline 78 RPM Record Player Revive Family History A D-Lab Christmas Gift
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- Опубликовано: 3 дек 2020
- Yes, a vintage record player brought to me by a co-worker. His wife's Grandma owned this player. She actually recorded the blank records using a RCA Victor machine in the early 1930's. The family longed to hear her again for Christmas. They are waiting for this video to air. I dropped all of my priority repairs to make this happen. D-Lab believes that the most important thing in life is Family. Hope you enjoy, my friends. Note: adjusted needle tilt & arm weight, now plays much better. Plays standard 78's perfect. The recorded records have much wider grooves, which decrease gain.
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WOW! That really takes me back to my childhood! I had a 1958 Montgomery Wards Silvertone record player...it played 78's, 45's and LP's!🎵🎶☺👌 I recall it needed service only once to replace the cartridge.
Now all they need is someone to re-record them, and pump up that gain on the recording so they can have it more easily accessible. Very cool.
Terry, the correct replacement needle for that unit is ASTATIC 51-3 PHONO CART./NEEDLE IN PFANSTIEHL P-51-3 for 78 RPM Jukes/Home Units - for future reference. I've used them a bunch of times in the Philco 46-1201. What a beautiful unit and repair .
The correct needle is an RCA needle. These were pre-grooved records. The audio was recorded on the upper portion of the groove.
Great job Terry, sounds like a harmonica playing by a crackling fire :)
Nice job! It's nice to see the past come alive.
These recordings can easily be transferred to digital and saved as mp3. It'll take some audio editing to clean up noise and amplify the signal.
As cool as restoring the player is, that's the best long-term plan. MP3s can be shared with the family and preserved by being in multiple homes.
Or better yet, FLAC, which is lossless.
I suspect that you would get a bit more level if you find a way to boost the cartridge output a bit-there might be a resistor or cap in the amp that could be swapped for a different value,else a simple pre-amp.
Remember, the old cartridge was probably a 3 volt crystal cartridge.
The one you replaced it with has a much lower output voltage.
This is more of an issue with those type of discs-they have a much lower signal recorded on them than commercial 78's do.
Just a thought .Those old crystal cartridges , would put out around 3 volts . I bet that one in there now is around 1.5 volts .
👍thumbs-up
Very cool! I picked up an old Airline suitcase record player at a yard sale as a winter resto project. Thank for the tip on the needle!
What a great record player
Good job d lab
Neat story. First thing I'd do is digitize those recordings for the family, before the discs deteriorate any more. If using this player to do it, with its high hum level, you can record into Audacity, sample the noise alone with the Noise Reduction tool, then remove it from the track. It'd be better to digitize with a higher output cartridge to improve the signal-to-noise ratio, but if this is the only way, then the track could be normalized after noise reduction and offer some improvement.
This is one project where I'd restuff the cardboard capacitor tubes for looks, though I know you didn't have the time. I cut one lead dead short at the wax, heat them very carefully over a gas stove flame (heat gun will work) until the wax liquifies on the surface of the tube, then tug the foil roll out one end by the remaining lead wire, using pliers. It usually comes apart leaving the other wax plug in the tube. I insert the new cap, put the second wax plug back over the lead and "cork" it in the tube, then carefully heat the wax just enough to grip the new leads.
This is a great record player
What a wonderful Christmas present for this family 💖
Terry, If you need more weight use the self adhesive wheel weights.
Also that original cart. was a Rochelle Salts cart. (Hi output) The replacement you used is a ceramic, with lower output.
You need to either use a cart with more output or add a preamp from the cart to the amp. I ran into t hat problem numerous times.
Nice one!
Victor Home recordings used a large somewhat blunt recording stylus that basically pushed the plastic material of the pregrooved recording blank from side to side. The plastic relaxes over time. To play them back required a special, larger tip needle. To play them back now, you need an even larger tip needle, on the order of 8 mil instead of the typical 3 mil 78 stylus. That old crystal cart is rebuildable, using either a donor crystal from a 60s era mono cart or modern piezo material. West Tech services rebuild them. However, you should give it a go. You've got nothing to loose. You need to replace any rubber bits that are hard, solder on the leads, and keep the lead-end of the crystal from moving so that the yoke can twist it to generate the current. Either use tiny rivets or small bolts and nuts to reassemble the case.
Victor home recordings were not Acetates or even Lacquers. They were pre-grooved material, maybe an early formulation of vinyl. They used a large, blunt "cutting" stylus that actually pushed the soft plastic material around rather than cut into it. Over the years the plastic has relaxed so they can be difficult to get sound out of unless the stylus is large. The first one I ever got to play well was played back on a GE VR II on which I'd mounted the very tip of a ball point pen!
Back in the day... (1980's) i use to get this stuff from PRB called "Rubber Re-grip" It worked well revitalizing the idler wheels, and pinch rollers on cassette decks.
Very informative and very pleasant video of learning
And now our Christmas Eve Special, "How the D-Lab Saved Christmas"
Those records have the coolest label I've ever seen.
There is only one stage of gain in this record player, so it would have required a very high output cartridge, 3 to 5 volts. Typical modern ceramic cartridges generally produce a few hundred millivolts. No more than a volt anyway. They would be used in a player with at least one more audio stage. To get the original gain, on all records, you will need to find a high output cartridge. This is a problem you encounter with RCA 45 rpm phonographs. Earlier ones had two audio stages and used cartridges with about 700 millivolts of output. Later ones were like this unit, with one stage of gain, and used cartridges with four or five volts output.
Great fix Terry...Wow, what history..! You sure do know how to fix em'..😀 Top job, and thanks for sharing..Ed..U.K..😀
Heartwarming story! Thanks for sharing!
Great job. Congratulations
Nicely done!
If you hear what he’s saying it’s a Victor Electrola they used to record these
You need chromium needles to hear these play louder
*Terry:* Contact Techmoan in the UK, on his RUclips channel he's shown other unusual phonographs like this. If he can't help he'll point you the right direction. D-Lab is somewhat like Techmoan in style; very down to earth, humorous, and he has "muppets" while Terry has "The Cobbler" and others. 😊
Was that recorded without electronic amplification? Also is that recorded lateral cut or hill and dale? Edison had patent on hill and dale I think, but not sure.
very nice...I remember putting a penny or nickel on the arm so the record wouldn't skip...
Wonderful Terry 👍Nice Work 👌
Excellent video !
Thank you for this!
I just picked up an Airline Model GAA-951A that definitely needs a new cartridge as well.
This was fantastic
Crosscheck, even the RCA salesman's audio was low on your Words Airline record player.
Be interesting to see if you could play these family recorded records on a different 78 RPM machine, as a test.
Too good sir. O am taking a Bow 👍👍
They used to have novelty 'recording' booths in record stores during the 40s and 50s where a person could make a playable recording of themselves. Maybe those were offshoots of the 'door to door' sales pitches this Grandma took advantage of in the 30s (or vice versa! lol). By the looks of that Wards record player, the only quality component I see is the solid wood cabinet, Terry! LoL
Nice job, Terry! Merry Christmas and happy new year! Old 78’s can be a lot of fun.
Cool shpw with a cool story!!
that was soooo cool...
Good job
awesome !
Actually those records were recorded on a special Rca recordable record player
I have a handful of these records
Dated 1930-32
personal observation. listening could turn out to be a one shot deal. my first try with a irreplaceable recording would be to make a new higher tech back up asap. at 78 rpm a newer turntable would exert less downward force on the record while either copy to tape or digitizing. just a 79 y/o point of view.
There are differences in the grooves of records. The talking record grooves are cut by a machine and are very narrow. So you won't be able to
receive all the information in the narrow groove without a special thin needle. Maybe try a RCA Victor 45 record player. Need higher output cartridge!
Terry doing a great imitation of Bryan from radiotvphononut. Love it! Top shelf repair that I hope they will be satisfied with.
Yes, the groves are much wider than the standard 78 records. I adjusted the tilt of the needle and now have better gain. They will be able to listen to the recordings. Standard 78's play perfect.
This may be the most rewarding electronics repair I have witnessed.
How great would it have been to convert the output so it could be cleaned up and recorded as an MP3?
Great repair Terry! The family will be thrilled! I have never worked on one of these, but your viewers seem to know fixes for the low volume. Maybe a preamp made from a LM386? Love from NW Colorado. Thanxz Oh is it too early to say Merry Christmas?
i always suspect the ceramics are bad ,,..most are gone inside ,,just got rebuilding a RCA 45 MODEL 45EY3 RECORD PLAYER ..
What luck! I. just scored one of these today for the huge sum of $5.68!
Maybe a high voltage choke of a couple of Henrys would reduce the hum and improve the quality of the audio.
The thing with these records is they are made to be played back with chromium style needles
So that’s why the volume is weak
that would affect the volume somewhat, but the main problem is that since those discs are recorded fairly low, you need all of the cartridge output/amp gain you can get.
The new cartridge has a much lower output than the original cartridge had(when it worked, of course).
too many ads suddenly, I hope you're getting something from them and it's not you tube greed, absolutely love this channel it's the only one I can't wait to see
RUclips sent me a terms of service notice a short time back announcing that they were going to run ads a-plenty, whether you have your account set to "monetize" or not.
$1500 per million views.
Nice work Terry! I think that musical instrument might be a squeeze box (e.g. concertina or melodeon). Hard to tell at that volume.
needles4jukeboxes dot com has P-51 replacement cartridges for about $20. It's #3, the one with a 3mil stylus.
The amps were interference free, as far as RUclips wil leit us know. Nice story behind it, too.
Hi! Thank you so much for posting this up! I am trying to repair a Airline record player from the same year that is in a console. It appears that the phono cartridge has been taken out and I was thinking that the newcome phono cartridge would be a adequate replacement. Could you tell me the specifications on that replacement cartridge? The photo fact lists the replacement part as a astatic: LT-3M. I highly doubt I will find that though so I'm trying to find one that will work.
check the angle of the stylus, possibly put a transistor pre-amp between the cartridge and amp.
You need the RCA needle. Those were recorded on the upper part of the groove, not the deep part.
Sounds like it has
Some old capacitive
Cigar butts that neeeed to come ohhuuuut a there.
Very cool Terry! I love repairs that have a great back story! I see Dick has already stopped by and left a thumbs down. Don't be like Dick folks.
Nice!
But what about that residual hum?
It is quite bad.
Is it from the wires going to the cartridge?
Pop some shielding on those wires and try again!
Does it not need to be cleaned and oiled, greased under the platter, motor idler wheel and spindle area also
Covered at the end of video
I think that old hymnal is public domain.
That cartridge is a old crystal cartridge
All dried out
They are always bad at this age
yep, the crystal gets water-logged and kills the cartridge.
Even if you find one that works, it probably won't for long.
By the way, last time I checked, there is a business that can rebuild those old cartridges-quite costly though.
Those were 3 volt output for those one tube outputs, I am surprised to see it plays as loud as it does on a ceramic cartridge without another amplification stage.
Hey brother what's the part number of that newcomb cartridge. I'm in the same boat right now
Just make sure the tracking weight isn’t too much for that 89-t or you’ll carve up your records.
On old pots ,there are solder lugs with wires going to components. usually 3 ,and 3 lugs going into the board,new pots only have 3 lugs to the board,no lugs for wires,is there a way around this,or must you find old pots? Any advice would be welcome I’m refurbishing a 1960 Regentone player.thanks
Terry, why does your tech repair community say Caps not the full name capacitors? I noticed that a lot. Uncle Doug is about the only one I hear him say capacitors Good repair!
how did they wire the plates of the tubes?
for their safety, I would have installed a power transformer.
How to remove this 60Hz hum noise?
The old crystal cartridge delivers @ 3V while the almost new ceramic cartridge delivers typicaly 0.5V, that way it would sound softer. Another issue could be, that the home made recordings were "Hill & Dale", that means vertically modulated instead of horizontaly modulated, the way in which commercial 78s were recorded, and maybe can be only played on Victrolas with special needles.
what model is that cartridge?
Ok
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I think the original cartridges used by the 50B5-35W4 (two tube) and 25L6 (One tube wonder) amplifiers using no preamp tube are the old salt crystal type that use 3 volt output. Most modern ones have a 0.5V to 1.5V output depending on the model. To get the original volume full volume level using one these newer cartridges you need to modify the amplifier circuit. Here is a good video about this. ruclips.net/video/D1TaImFcAew/видео.html
Couldn't the old cartridge be rebuilt?
I hear it is very expensive. This was to be a low budget repair
Ok...
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