Paillard double spring disassembly

[MM0708]

Hello everyone, 

 

I’ve recently acquired a Purophon branded phonograph with Paillard 15DD motor and decided to clean and re-grease it.

 

However, I’m struggling with opening the spring barrels; I hope someone here will know a proper way to open these.

 

If you need more pictures or info, please let me know.

 

Thank you for your answers

 

 

Edited May 14, 2023 by MM0708

[MM0708]

It was suggested to me that barrels will come off the shaft just by pulling the barrels in the opposite direction, but when doing this I can feel the spring resistance and I’m a bit nervous to do it full force because I don’t want to ruin the spring/s.

 

Does anyone have a picture of the inside of the barrel, it would be excellent just to see the way the shaft grips/locks each spring?

[CurtA]

Usually, you have to separate the "cans" (barrels) by removing the lids to access the springs.  But first you have to separate the barrels from each other (that's the mystery).  Purophon is one of the many Swiss phonographs, so there may be a trick to separating the barrels.  There may be someone on the British & European machines section who is familiar with working on Paillard 15DD motors.  However, most machines operate in a similar way.  The spring ends have a hole or slot in the end that is bent around the shaft.  The shaft has a pin or "button" that the springs fit over and tension holds them in place.  

 

My advice is if the motor runs smoothly with no "bumps", unevenness or noise while running, put them back and leave them alone.  Oil all the moving parts with a high-grade oil and you should be good.  You could squirt some oil into the barrels if you can't separate them, just to soften up whatever old grease is in there. 

 

The reason I say this is if you have never serviced springs, they CAN be dangerous to work with.  When re-installing them, you have to pay attention to the direction they were originally installed or the motor won't work.  If you uncoil them out of the barrels, they are sharp and if they get away from  you can cause serious injury.  

 

I have been working on these motors for 40+ years and I avoid springs, if possible.  If they truly need servicing, send them out to someone who routinely works with them.

 

One more thing:  What model is your Purophon?  Would you mind posting pictures of it?  I would love to find a Purophon Loopingphon portable.

[MM0708]

Thank you for a detailed answer.

I’ve decided to take it apart because the grease that was leaking out of the barrel was really thick and I imagine it must have interfered with the spring operation.

The way I did it is as follows: since the shaft wasn’t going nowhere no matter what, I’ve popped one of the caps off and with heavy gloves carefully pulled the barrel part with the gear on while unwinding the coil. The shaft must have been stuck to the spring, because after cleaning all I had to do is wiggle it a bit and it would undo itself from the spring slot.

 

After cleaning and packing the barrels with grease, I’ve hammered the caps back on and connected the barrels with the shaft, making sure it caught both spring slots.

 

I will post some pictures/videos but I doubt it’s a Loopingphon; actually I did not find the same one anywhere online.

[MM0708]

Actually, here is the same one (albeit different color) from a Swiss website, I must have missed it when searching earlier. I don’t know which model it is.

 

 

 

[CurtA]

Yours is not a "Loopingphon" - here is a video of one:

Edited May 17, 2023 by CurtA

[alang]

Curt, your best bet of possibly finding a Loopingphone might be to post a search request on the German forum https://grammophon-platten.de. I've seen it being discussed there before. They do have an English section on the forum even though it's not used much. Worth a try.

 

They actually have a special article about the Loopingphone company on their main page. Google translate should make it accessible for English language readers.

 

Good luck!

Andreas

[CurtA]

Thanks, Andreas...