I'm not typically a fan of external-horn machines (strange, I know), but I came upon this one last weekend and liked it, so I picked it up. It's a Columbia BI Sterling, unrestored and pretty complete. As far as I can tell, all it's missing is the escutcheon for the crank slot, and the original crank. It's a nice machine, and I'd like to restore it. Some questions:
1. Should that crank-slot escutcheon be fairly easy to find? Were they standard on several machines? 2. What style crank would be correct? Are they easy to find? 3. What is that little hole over the handle (photo #8) for? Is something missing there? I think it might be the lid-latch, but I'm not sure. 4. The hardware -- horn, tone arm, reproducer -- were clearly nickel-plated, but have faded a and tarnished a lot. I'd like to try cleaning them up first to see how far that will get me. How should I go about this? And if that doesn't work, has anyone here had a positive experience with nickel re-plating? 5. If I decide to go ahead and electroplate them all, how can I avoid them looking shiny like chrome? My objective is to make them look as they did originally. And any idea how much that would cost? 6. Any idea what color it the turntable felt would have been when new? (It's all gone now.) 7. How does that on/off/speed regulator knob work? 8. What would be the best way to clean up the case without refinishing it or damaging that beautiful decal? Thanks! 7. Does anything else appear wrong/missing? There is no screw inside the case to connect the support -- I assume that vanished a long time ago. Anything else look suspicious? Thanks! -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 1.JPG Type: image/jpeg Size: 153259 bytes Desc: not available URL: <http://oldcrank.org/pipermail/phono-l/attachments/20140727/64908818/attachment.jpe> -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 2.JPG Type: image/jpeg Size: 158611 bytes Desc: not available URL: <http://oldcrank.org/pipermail/phono-l/attachments/20140727/64908818/attachment-0001.jpe> -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 3.JPG Type: image/jpeg Size: 148477 bytes Desc: not available URL: <http://oldcrank.org/pipermail/phono-l/attachments/20140727/64908818/attachment-0002.jpe> -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 4.JPG Type: image/jpeg Size: 157844 bytes Desc: not available URL: <http://oldcrank.org/pipermail/phono-l/attachments/20140727/64908818/attachment-0003.jpe> -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 5.JPG Type: image/jpeg Size: 153311 bytes Desc: not available URL: <http://oldcrank.org/pipermail/phono-l/attachments/20140727/64908818/attachment-0004.jpe> -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 6.JPG Type: image/jpeg Size: 154112 bytes Desc: not available URL: <http://oldcrank.org/pipermail/phono-l/attachments/20140727/64908818/attachment-0005.jpe> -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 7.JPG Type: image/jpeg Size: 156160 bytes Desc: not available URL: <http://oldcrank.org/pipermail/phono-l/attachments/20140727/64908818/attachment-0006.jpe> -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 8.JPG Type: image/jpeg Size: 156672 bytes Desc: not available URL: <http://oldcrank.org/pipermail/phono-l/attachments/20140727/64908818/attachment-0007.jpe> -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 9.JPG Type: image/jpeg Size: 151552 bytes Desc: not available URL: <http://oldcrank.org/pipermail/phono-l/attachments/20140727/64908818/attachment-0008.jpe> -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 10.JPG Type: image/jpeg Size: 152576 bytes Desc: not available URL: <http://oldcrank.org/pipermail/phono-l/attachments/20140727/64908818/attachment-0009.jpe> _______________________________________________ Phono-L mailing list http://phono-l.org
