Project Gramophone

This video gives you an idea of how the finished gramophone looks (and sounds). Excuse the dirty hand but I have been trying to renovate another one today and I have oil engrained in my hand!

  • Gramophone Before Renovation
  • The speaker didnt need a door over it! Infact both doors are removed and we made a new one for the left hand side
  • The turntable is removed as well as the board that holds the turntable. The turntable was cleaned and repainted silver.
  • We stripped the carcass down and this meant losing the Selecta logo in the varnish
  • This is the mechanism for the gramophone. It’s covered in old grease and oil.
  • Once the cover is unscrewed everything becomes clear.
  • The large silver circle is where the springs are housed that power the gramophone
  • The springs aren’t pretty inside. One of them is broken so I repair it. Everything is cleaned thorougly with white spirit to remove the old grease. This takes ages but eventually the springs are refitted and given fresh grease.
  • We made a new board to hold the turntable using durable gold kimorra and glued some velvet to some kimorra to make a velvet surface for the turntable for records to sit upon
  • We inserted some new panels in the carcass where needed and started painting the frame in black and we used a pale red in the panels on the back of the unit
  • The interior was painted bronze, gold and red. Records can stand up inside the left hand section on a new shelf we inserted. Records can also be stored below the shelf on their sides. Gold kimorra was put onto the end panels.
  • The speaker was painted a pale red to tidy it up even though it wont be visible when everything is completed. Gold paint was put around the rather tired veneered surface
  • Bronze kimorra was glued into the previously venerred area. It’s starting to look good.
  • The top of the previous lid was replaced and the job of building up the layers of red paint to give a deep luxurious finish started
  • In the end 4 coats were applied
  • As well as the red paint, the lid contained gold and bronze paint. A red and gold highlight was applied to the carving surrounded by the bronze paint. New gold hinges were fitted and the lid attached. The gramophone unit was dropped into place
  • We reclaimed some mahogany to make a new door. The dowelling was added so we could insert more gold kimorra to keep continuity with the side panels and again many coats of red paint were applied.
  • We designed a new speaker cover. This was painted and gold fabric was glued behind it. We put red velvet beind the eyes to make them stand out.
  • We bought 3 different gold door knobs and selected the one that we thought looked best
  • There was no metal plate on the old carcass to support the handle. We found a metal plate and drilled it as a handle support.
  • We found out how to make transfer decals and photoshopped the logo we had removed when stripping all the old varnish off
  • We lost the yellow colour in the logo it retains its identity