New to the board: Just bought a Wilcox Gay Recordio off Ebay

This is where record cutters raise questions about cutting, and trade wisdom and experiment results. We love Scully, Neumann, Presto, & Rek-O-Kut lathes and Wilcox-Gay Recordios (among others). We are excited by the various modern pro and semi-pro systems, too, in production and development. We use strange, extinct disc-based dictation machines. And other stuff, too.

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jtown
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Dec 15, 2010 12:54 am
Location: Syracuse, NY
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New to the board: Just bought a Wilcox Gay Recordio off Ebay

Post: # 11919Unread post jtown
Wed Dec 29, 2010 3:20 am

Bought a Wilcox Gay Recordio off of eBay : http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rt=nc&nma=true&item=300500976687&si=7PM69ERU8GMKIMhECmRlZsCt3kM%253D&viewitem=&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWNX%3AIT

Was able to fix the power cord. Was able to get the unit to play am radio (without any hum/distortion surprisingly). All the tubes seem to be in good shape for their age. Even the tone dial seems to work correctly. Completely cleaned the unit. Used some WD40 to get the turntable to turn smoothly at the right speed. My problem is that the tone arm and the cutting arm don't seem to be working. When using the cutting arm the arm produces grooves on the cutting surface (I have been using cd-r's) but the grooves are silent when played back on another working turntable. When using the playing arm for the "Use As Phonograph" function I hear the audio from the needle but nothing through the speaker. Any ideas how i can fix this problem??? Is this due to the wiring or the playback and cutting arms? Any help would be amazing :)

Thanks!
j-town

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petermontg
Posts: 610
Joined: Sat Jun 26, 2010 7:51 am
Location: Ireland.

Post: # 11921Unread post petermontg
Wed Dec 29, 2010 8:38 am

hi jtown

gib epling might be able to help you out, drop him a line.

westtechservices@yahoo.com

he does alot of vintage gear.

regards
peter
Peter Montgomery
+353(0)894926271
peter(at)petermontgomerymastering.com

Stereo cutter head wanted. Send email or smoke signals.

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markrob
Posts: 1636
Joined: Wed Nov 28, 2007 1:14 am
Location: Philadelphia Area

Post: # 11924Unread post markrob
Wed Dec 29, 2010 8:51 am

Hi,

Sounds like you are in pretty good shape. Even though the electronics are working, you would be better off if you replaced all of the paper/foil and electrolytic capacitors. In equipment of this age, they have deteriorated. As far as the cutting head goes, its a probably dead. These were typically crystal units and the Rochelle Salt element is normally shot. These can be re-built. Gib at West Tech is someone to cehck out. Not sure if anybody else can re-build these.

http://www.west-techservices.com/index.htm

Mark

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