Here's where I'm at with reassembly. At first I looked at the pile of parts and had this sinking feeling. Then, using the pictures I took and the exploded view from the schematic I began to make some progress. Taking LOTS of digital pictures is a must. After you take a bunch, take even more. I always seem to miss that little part, spring or screw and wish I did take more.

The reject before and after. I used white acrylic paint forced into the letters and wiped off the surface with a slightly damp paper towel.

Incredible. It looked very rough but it's starting to look like brand-new.

-David

Thank you David.
I had this fit of depression last night when I looked at this and three other projects I have going all at once, sprawled all over my house. I don't know if it's like this for other members here, but I had to ask myself why I do this. It's certainly not profitible. It's messy and time consuming too. ARF puts it in perspective for me. Other members appreciate what goes into a project and if it's entertaining and educational for them, it gets me over the times when I question myself. Two days off work and it's time to clean up this mess!!

Here's a little design snafu--you can see a little brass tab I have an arrow to. This is supposed to be a spring that keeps part 58, the cam drive ratchet, pressed against part 69, the drive drum. Why they made it out of soft brass is beyond me since it takes a decent amount of pressure to keep it engaged when the drum swings back and drives the reject mechanism.

I bent it once and it's toast. Looks like I have to get creative here...

I think I can find a fine small spring about 3/8" long that I can epoxy where the current tab mounts. That should give the ratchet enough pressure to engage without too much drag. More on this tomorrow morning.

Noisebox, that's going to be a gorgeous changer when you get done with it. What you have done so far looks very professional.

Thanks Larry. It's not really a complicated one. There are only three adjustments to make to get it aligned as well. I might just build a stand alone cabinet for it. I still don't have a player for my 78s

You have a good eye for detail. It's amazing how simple mechanisms once were. They are built for the adult male hand and easy to read and operate. It seems like everything built today is cheap, disposable, miniature and built for the hand and eyes of a child. I wonder what people will be collecting, and restoring 70 years from now. The only thing I know for sure is that it will be black plastic and reading glasses will be minatory to find the power switch.

Utah Radio Products was a subsidiary of Detrola at the time these changers were designed and manufactured. They made a few different models of changers, this was supposed to be the best one and is not seen as often as the others.

Quite a few radio manufacturers chose Utah changers as OEM for their radio-phono models. At least one of the Utah changers uses mostly stamped parts as opposed to castings and was specifically designed that way to make it less expensive to manufacture. There was an article about them in one of the trade magazines at the time they were introduced.

Some of the Utah changers were built at the Detrola factory in Detroit, according to my late friend Phil who was a manager there, others were built at a Utah facility in Huntington, Indiana.

Any relation to Utah speakers? BTW, Utah speakers is still around and still makes the 4-inch speaker of yore. I bought one a few months ago -- it looks exactly the same as it did 50 years ago except that the basket is now a dark blue, and the speaker has an 8-ohm voice coil rather than 4. Still has an Alnico V magnet, and is still made in USA.

-David

Thanks for the compliment Doug. Your work inspires me. All of your sets have a nice glow to them. As you know, it takes a lot of time to give then the once over, but it pays off in the end with nice looking work that plays well.

Dennis, Thanks for the interesting history of this unit. The service manual has the name of The International Detrola Corporation on the front cover. I was wondering if there was a connection. With the exception of the little brass spring this thing is built for service and simplicity. I can see why they were popular. By the way, I grew up in Detroit in the '60s and '70s. Detrola was before my time but it was still a very exciting place to be in that era.

I'm wondering if this Utah is somehow related to Utah Lansing as well.

Back to work....
I went to the hardware store and sprung 60 cents for a spring. I got the softest one that would fit. I used JB quick weld epoxy and it seems to work fine now. I'm hoping the tension of the old one wasn't too critical but it'll show once I get it up and running if it isn't.

The record shelf cover had a crack in it. I used some faucet screens and JB Weld quick epoxy to fix one side and reinforce the other.

Now here's a case where I almost ruined this piece by dinking around too much. After the fix I polished it up with Novus and filled the numbers in with white paint as I did to the reject switch. Then I got this goofy idea in my head that it wasn't shiny enough so I sprayed it with clear acrylic..which made things start to look real bad. I think the solvent in the clear coat was attacking the plastic. Then, in a panic I tried to wipe it off and when that didn't work I started using lacquer thinner on it. One bad move after another!!

Needless to say I spent at least an hour scraping and sanding it smooth again with the major loss being the numbers aren't as sharp as I would like the. Moral of the story--leave well enough alone!

After some tense moments and hair pulling--here it is!
Before and after-----
And someone said it was too far gone--HA!
Nothing is too far gone. It's a personal thing whether or not a person wants to put in the time, effort and or money to bring something back. Anything can be fabricated.
Even though there's nothing real valuable about this unit is has some unique features and is pretty simple as well. Pictured at the bottom is this nifty spring-loaded hook that holds the tone arm down. A lot better than some of the other hold down schemes I've come across.

I fired it up and everything functions, but it's going to need some adjustments before it can work. The distance between the spindle and record tower is critical and a pain to adjust. I will have to take off the turntable, loosen three screws and move the spindle closer or further towards the tower so the record will drop. Pain in the butt.

Then there's the tone arm positioning and tone arm height. I'll make a video once I get it to the point of playing a record.

[EDIT]
I just noticed from the before and after pics I have the spindle on backwards. It won't be able to push the next record down...

Very, very nice. I have a changer I want to send you!!!!

Hubba-Hubba.

Noisebox, the more I look at the finished changer, the more I think a black flocked platter would look much better. Your tonearm and record support arm are black, so why not have a black flocked platter? Just my .02 on your finished changer.

Absolutely beautiful work! It looks wonderful!

I too have done similar things as far as the record shelf. I remember one time cleaning up an old CB which had a clear plastic lens for "ON THE AIR" and "BUSY" lamps. I decided to clean it with Acetone.

OH! I learned my lesson right there! Acetone and plastic DO NOT MIX!
I spent hours sanding, buffing and polishing that lens back to usable condition. It didn't look bad in the end, but it was a lot of extra labor I could have avoided.

As they say, experience is the best teacher!

-Steve

I can't believe how close it looks to the original.

Black is elegant but shows the lint.

The VM-made changer on my RCA Victor 3-HES-5 had a thick. plush almost black flocked platter that was absolutely fabulous. Doug, I never saw any lint on it, but my eyes don't see as sharply as your Nikon digital camera sees things.

Larry, I usually go for what was there originally. Now, if there was a similar model with black I might consider it but i'm kind of a stickler for factory stock wherever possible. Here's the Philco D-10 changer I did. Total tear down and refinish. It's in my 46-1226