HMV "Zebra" record player

[SGT.Pepper]

Like most of the things in my collection, this one came from a car boot sale for a quid. It had obviously been rescued from a skip and I suspected that if I didn't buy it it'd end up back there again. As well as that, it looked as though it had been in a fire (which it probably caused). All the insides were covered in a thin layer of ash, the turntable mat had melted and the cabinet was horribly dirty and covered in paint stains.

Upon getting it home, I opened it up to see what condition the amp was in, only to find that it had disappeared. In fact, everything inside was gone, except for the speakers and the control pots! You could tell where the two amplifiers once were, though, because they had left massive black marks on the inside of the cabinet! My first thought was to bin it, but then I remembered that I had a '70s Ferguson stereo transistor amp in my box of bits!

Before I did any electrical work, however, I decided to sort out the deck, which was stuck on 33 RPM. First I removed the rubber drive wheel, blindly sprayed WD-40 all over the insides, cleaned the velocity trip thingy to stop it from skipping, then put the deck back together again. This restored functionality. I also bought a cheap 1990s Pioneer deck from a car boot sale, cut the mat down to size and used it to replace the original.

Now for the electric stuff. Straight from the mains I wired up a 12v transformer, with the 12v end wired into the Ferguson amp. I then wired up the deck into the amp, and then connected the speaker to the left hand channel. Unfortunately the bass, treble and balance pots were the wrong value for the new amp, so they were removed and correct ones installed. The on/off/volume pot, after oiling, worked fine with the new amp for some reason, so I kept that one in there. I found that the cartridge had gone all mouldy, but by some amazing coincidence I found an exact replacement stuck to one of my speakers!

Now for the back panel, which as well as having a voltage selector, had one external speaker plug on it, and plugs for two auxiliary inputs. All the plugs were some hopelessly outdated type that I didn't have though. It was clear that I'd never use any of that cp so I made a new panel. On the new panel I put plugs for two external speakers, and two switches to turn off the internal and external loudspeakers.

Now the record player was in full working order and I'd cleaned the deck as best I could, but the cabinet was still horrible. It was clear that it wouldn't clean up and paint wouldn't stick to it, so covering it would be the only option. I went to B&Q and, after finding out that they no longer did pink fake fur, I bought some zebra-patterned Fablon. Oh yes, I am so trendy. After I had re-covered the cabinet, I left all the rusty brass bits of trim in a bowl of Cillit Bang overnight. Yes, really. And it worked, too.

Now the record player is looking, and working, like new. Although I earthed as much as I could, it still has a bit of a hum, but that isn't noticeable with the volume on a normal level. It suprisingly sounds really good, even though I made it out of stuff from my spares box. But, best of all, it goes really well with my black and white themed bedroom! By the way, I've no idea what model number it is, so if anyone could tell me, that'd be grand.

[Steve_P]

Very 60's. Anything can be reused and made into something useful. That's the sort of thing you got in Late 60s/Early 70s movies set a among the London trendy at the time.

Cheers,

Steve P.

[geofy]

Made it into a very good restoration even if not the original finish, and will make it more collectable, a black and white case

Geof

[geofy]

Originally Posted by SGT.Pepper

Now the record player is looking, and working, like new. Although I earthed as much as I could, it still has a bit of a hum, but that isn't noticeable with the volume on a normal level.

If you have an unregulated supply this will cause the mains hum (also make sure the record deck is ‘earthed’ back to a single point with the amplifier chassis). Fitting a suitable regulator chip in the supply along with some additional capacitance will reduce the hum and make the sound more ‘solid’. I carried this out with my Bush SRP51 by reducing the 22V unregulated supply to around 18 Volts regulated by using a three terminal 12 V fixed regulator with a 6.8V Zener in the control pin, and 4700uF plus a 0.1uf (to ‘decouple’ the large cap) across the output of the Regulator, all done by guesswork but it worked very well and it made it sound much better with hardly any mains hum and much better bass from the fairly ordinary 8*5” Celestion speaker. In my case the supply was negative going so I had to be careful to insulate the positive power supply chassis from the negative can of the additional capacitor which just about squeezed under it.

regards

Geof

[SGT.Pepper]

Hi Geofy! Last night I managed to "borrow" a regulator chip from something and fit it. It's working much better now! Thanks!