The 1930s were the dark age of the record changer: The general lack of
money due to the great depression, but also a shift away from records
towards the radio led cost saving and design simplification for record
changers that eventually led to the prevailing drop changer design by the
mid-1930s.
As an illustration on how
bad things were, Victor record sales from a high of 38 Million in 1927 had
dropped to an all-time low of 3.1 million in 1931.
Few people had the money or
the interest to buy expensive record changer in the midst of the great
depression, therefore simplified designs were required, and no one better
than General Industries could provide the absolute lowest in record
changers.
And again steps on the scene Mr. Homer Capehart, arguably the greatest
talent scout for record changers. Not only did he discover the famous
CAPEHART
changer, lying forgotten at US Columbia. After his quick ouster from his
own Capehart Company, he found the famous Wurlitzer Simplex mechanism, and
joined that company as their head of sales. The story goes, while he was
approaching Wurlitzer, Capehart also held the rights to the General
Industries changer, but Wurlitzer wanted a selective jukebox mechanism,
not just a changer.
The General Industries K changer (10" only) or L17 changer (10" or 12") is
the most simplistic, cheapest and fastest changer possible. It was very
successful and produced from 1932 to at least 1939. Used by major brands,
like Philco, Sparton and Scott, as well as sold as a portable player by
the Liberty Music Shop of New York, this changer is found in many consoles
from the 1930s.
The design is very similar
to the contemporary RCA 15U changer, which also played a stack from the
top to the bottom, but used a more gentle version of a transfer arm
grabbing the spindle hole of the topmost record.
The changer works by having a stack of records sitting on the turntable.
When tripped, a knife edged "Slasher" goes under the rim of the top
record, and throws it off the spindle. The mechanism is adjusted in a way
that the slasher misses the last record. Therefore, the last record on the
changer repeats indefinitely,
The linkages you see in the
picture is all there is to the whole changer: While all other changers had
a geared cam that would run slower than the turntable, here the half
circle disc on the spindle is the cam. That means that the whole cycle
takes one-half rotation of the spindle, or something less than .5 seconds!
During the cycle, the tone arm is thrown out by the single lever, but a
dashpot ensure that the tonearm comes down with a time delay and gently.
It is notable that this is one of the first changers that abandons the
"constant VTA" principle, which means that only one record is on the
platter at any time. Even though we may think that constant VTA (a term
used for stereo LPs) was on the mind of the designers, the challenge was
not so much the varying tone arm angle, but that with the heavy pick-ups
the top disc may slip and not play correctly. This problem continued
through all later drop changers, until the light-weight tonearm became
established. It is not rare to find records of the period with a "no slip"
velvet ring pasted on the label.
The GI changer (as did the RCA 15U) avoided slippage by having a small
tension spring along the spindle, which held the records securely.
Even though the GI "Slasher" changer is very disturbing to watch, it
actually works quite reliably, was cheap and available. The record rims
may have suffered from the knife edge, but then all other drop changers of
the 1930s employed separator knives which would chip records.
MACHINE INFORMATION
| Maker |
General Industries |
| Model |
K |
| Year |
1932 - 1939 |
| Owner |
Gib Epling |
| Repaired/Serviced by |
Gib Epling |
I am always interested to hear about other machines.
You can reach me at:
sgimips1 "at" yahoo.com (replace "at" with @)
Many thanks to Gib Epling for providing photos and the video of his machine, and
Fred Rice for providing detail information.
Please check out Gib's
West-Tech Services
http://www.west-techservices.com.
Gib provides expert repair and rebuilding services for all record players
and changers.
Also many thanks to Robert
Baumbach for editing and preparing the video.
Again my great thanks to Chuck
Azzalina for his great help in
creating these pages.
Pleases check out his
other web pages with even more
fascinating early audio and TV tube electronics. One level above this
page, you can find more
fascinating changers with video clips.
MORE VIDEOS and LINKS
Also check out Robert Baumbach's great site of Old Record Changers:
www.oldrecordchangers.com
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