Advice on Sonora Barcarolle Gramophone

[bloss1990]

Hello everyone! I have a Sonora Barcarolle gramophone and am looking to get some advice on it. It was recently serviced (we only got it back a few days ago) and should be running fine. However, I'm having trouble working out how many times to turn the crank. I don't want to over wind it so have been stopping as soon as I feel any increase in resistance, but it seems to not be creating sufficient power to play any of our records. How many times should I be turning the crank on this model? I've read conflicting advice ranging from 15 turns to 35-40 turns. Thank you! 

[Jerry]

A common issue for new owners. If everything is in good condition, you can't really "overwind" it. Aside from intentional abuse, there is no such thing as "overwinding." You'll feel a sudden increase in winding tension when fully wound. Stop winding when you feel that.  Abuse only occurs if you force it past being fully wound. All that being said, I almost never fully wind. These things are old, why stress them to the max?

 

So, how far do you wind? There is no correct number of turns. Every machine is different. You already know you're not winding enough. Move on from there, increasing your winding until you can play a record all the way through. The next record may need just a few additional turns to get it through the tune. Again, experiment a bit. You'll soon get the feel for it. Without feeling resistance when you wind, you're not winding enough. It takes energy to play a record. If you're not inputting energy/effort, the machine won't have the oomph to play a record.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 3 hours ago by Jerry

[bloss1990]

1 hour ago, Jerry said:

A common issue for new owners. If everything is in good condition, you can't really "overwind" it. Aside from intentional abuse, there is no such thing as "overwinding." You'll feel a sudden increase in winding tension when fully wound. Stop winding when you feel that.  Abuse only occurs if you force it past being fully wound. All that being said, I almost never fully wind. These things are old, why stress them to the max?

 

So, how far do you wind? There is no correct number of turns. Every machine is different. You already know you're not winding enough. Move on from there, increasing your winding until you can play a record all the way through. The next record may need just a few additional turns to get it through the tune. Again, experiment a bit. You'll soon get the feel for it. Without feeling resistance when you wind, you're not winding enough. It takes energy to play a record. If you're not inputting energy/effort, the machine won't have the oomph to play a record.

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you so much! When it got serviced we were told to be very careful with winding it up to not over do it as it will break the mainspring (we were told it was in very bad shape from that when we brought it in, but we can't be sure if that was us or the previous owners) so it's just made me very wary about how much we are winding it up. It took about 40 turns to get to the point of noticeable resistance before we got it serviced, but I think that may have been too much given what the guy said after the service. I will try winding it up more incrementally until it plays through a whole record without slowing. Hopefully that will avoid putting too much pressure on the mainspring/over winding it 😊