hello my name is dan and i'm an old crank and this is my story. i know this site is primarily devoted to phonograph's but i did notice that there was a discussion on ediphone's a little while back. so i figure this will be the best place to get the answers and help that i need. first i want to apologize as this may seem a bit long winded. so here is my story. back in January of this year i had gotten into the hobby of buying,selling and collecting old toys cars and trucks namely. while at an estate sale looking for toys i came across a phonograph (sonora troubador in pretty rough shape). i didn't know a thing about them but have always been intrigued by them and always wanted one so i bought it knowing i could at least make a quick buck on it. so as i was leaving the sale i noticed this office machine thing. kinda had an idea of what it was but not sure so i figured i could probably make a buck on it too. so i bought it as well. now as I'm driving home I'm thinking to myself what possible excuse do i have to explain to the mrs of why i needed these since i had gone there looking for toys. anyway i get home take this office mach. put it in a cupboard to deal with later as i have a phonograph to clean up and sell. so as I'm cleaning up the sonora i say to myself i could probably get more for it if i removed all the tarnish from the chrome, sanded it down a bit patch up the big ding on the door and all the other little dents. a fresh coat of varnish and some new felt for the turntable it should look pretty good . two weeks later I'm finished and looking at this beautiful machine (if i don't say so myself) and say i can't sell this. because for $100.00 cdn and two weeks worth of elbow grease i now own a beautiful piece of 95 year old history in excellent working condition. and on the odd occasion if I'm feeling a bit down i slap on some glenn miller (in the mood) and that just picks me up. now about a two months later i remember oh yeah the office machine thing. i take it out of hiding look at it and say to myself was i drinking when i bought this i thought the phonograph was in rough shape. after i did all the google searches to find out exactly what it is and how it works. the first snag i ran into was when i noticed that the motor and mounting bracket are missing next i noticed there is no power cord and the mouth piece that screws onto the hand set is also gone. so now I'm looking at this ediphone (i know what it is now) saying to myself I'll be lucky if i can get my thirty bucks back that i paid for it. now i have a decision to make sell it as is or try to find whats missing and see if i can't get it to work. of course i never take the easy road so i start searching for a motor and mounting bracket and find one. now this part i find a bit uncanny.when recv'd the motor and bracket i tried fitting it to the bedplate and found that where the wires had been cut to disconnect the motor they match up perfectly to the wires that are inside the case. it would almost seem that this motor and bracket came from this machine. (coincidence probably ?) now that i have cleared the first major hurdle the next is wax cylinders I'll never know if this thing works if i don't have the wax cylinders to try it out. low and behold if i don't come across a case of unused cylinders and two single ones. now I'm getting pretty excited about this except that when i look at the machine it looks gross. the black paint is quite dull the chrome is anything but shiny and the entire unit feels sticky. so i dismantle everything that i felt confident enough to put back together and start cleaning. the first thing i did was remove and clean the chrome mandrel. wow did it ever come out nice and it was at that point when i looked at the mandrel and the rest of the machine that i thought i just might have another beautiful machine here and i was right. after i finished cleaning and putting it back together it looks awesome aside from a few scratches it is in excellent condition. so now here i am today asking for your help in finding a power cord and mouth piece. possibly one other piece that i am unsure what it may be as i noticed it looks like something may have been mounted under the bed plate about two inches from the ac/dc switch. does anyone on this site know where i may be able to get a power cord and mouth piece, also would anyone here have a picture of the underside of a complete exec.ediphone to see if i am missing anything else or i could upload a picture of mine and perhaps someone could tell me if it is complete or not. also i am in need of some instructions on how to operate this. i would like to use one of the two single cylinders that i have for testing purposes only. one of the cylinders is an edison ediphone cylinder it is unused but the color of it is what has me concerned the dark brown has turned light brown over most of the cylinder. so i am unsure if it would safe to try without damaging the reproducer. the other cylinder is i believe a columbia dictaphone cylinder it is in good unused condition but i am unsure if it can be used on an edison machine. and finally what is the rule on using new cylinders do they NEED to be shaved or is that just a reccommendation. will i sell it if and when it's operational not sure but i'm quite certain that when i show my darling wife the victrola orthophonic phonograph i bought yesterday( in rough shape of course) she will say something's gotta go i just hope she's talking about one of the machine's lol. i consider any amount of information provided to me to be very valuable and is greatly appreciated. thank you in advance.
best regards dan _______________________________________________ Phono-L mailing list http://phono-l.oldcrank.org
