One of my little dreams came true: I got a gramophone. And even if it is very tiny, no one has anything like it. It is made by hand. So there’s a new addition to my collection of miniature handmade items.
Nowadays, the gramophone can only be found in museums, antique shops and collectors. If someone keeps it at home, it is most likely as a decorative element, and not as a player. And some 100 years ago there was a real gramophone boom that swept many countries. Everyone wanted to own this miracle of technology.
I suggest you create your own miniature gramophone. I think that lovers of dollhouse miniatures will find the master class useful.
Let's get started. By tradition, I chose the prototype (on the left). It turned out pretty similar (right).
For the work I needed: thick paper, a napkin, wire (10-12mm thick), PVA glue, transparent super glue, office glue stick for paper, acrylic paint various colors.
Master class on creating a paper puppet gramophone
1 The most noticeable part of a gramophone is the sound amplifier, it is also called an acoustic pipe or horn. I made it out of paper. I can’t tell you exactly the thickness of the paper, but it is definitely thicker than regular office paper with a density of 80 g/m2. I cut out the parts according to the given diagram in the amount of 10 pieces.
2 Using a glue stick I glued all the parts together. It's not as simple as it might seem. It took a LOT of effort to achieve smooth curves. The result is the upper bulky part of the pipe
3 In order to make a smaller part of the horn, I twisted a narrow, dense cone (4-5 layers of paper). I aligned the edge and curved it, imitating the lower curved part of the sound amplifier. Then I connected the upper and lower parts with glue.
4 To attach the pipe to the body I used a small piece of wire with a loop at one end. I inserted the finished horn into a loop and glued it with super glue.
5 Using PVA glue and pieces of napkin, I increased the density of the pipe and at the same time hid the gluing points.
7 Since my gramophone was intended to be an antique item, I partially covered it with blue-green paint for an aging effect.
8 The last stage of painting. I took decorative acrylic paint in the color of old copper. I painted the horn with a dry brush. To enhance the effect, I wiped some places with a napkin so that the blue paint could show through. The result is an almost real copper patina.
9 Now let's take care of the body. I cut it out of the same paper as the horn. (diagram shown above). The result was a box 45 by 45 mm with a height of 15 mm.
10 Additionally, I cut out several squares with sides of 47 and 49 mm, which I glued to the top and bottom of the box. AND finishing touch: small squares 5 by 5 mm in the amount of 4 pieces as legs.
11 There is a small decor on the front of the box. To achieve similarity with the original, I propose the following diagram of elements. Although you don’t have to do the decor.
12 The next step is priming. Usually for these purposes I use white matte ceiling paint. But regular white acrylic paint will also work.
13 To achieve an imitation of wood on paper, after the primer had dried, I covered the box with red paint. Then I needed brown acrylic paint and a large dry brush. She wiped off the excess paint on a napkin and, using an almost clean brush, moving it in only one direction, brushed it across the box. It turned out quite similar to the structure of a tree.
14 I made the mechanism that triggers the spring system from wire. By dipping one end of the wire into nail polish you can get a neat handle.
15 To make a hole for the handle, you can use a thick needle, an awl, or, like me, use a drill.
16 The original gramophone has a membrane with a needle attached to the narrow side of the pipe. The membrane for my gramophone was a small gear from a clock mechanism.
17 Now the record. Everything is as simple as shelling pears here. All you need is a color printer. I pasted the printed plate onto a layer of thicker paper.
18 All that remains is to connect everything. To make it clear what’s what, I sketched out what details are mentioned in various points of the master class.
Since January 2014, in addition to the endless book, I have had one more creative project- a papier-mâché gramophone for Sashka’s performance. It’s a pity that I didn’t write in my diary during this period step-by-step work over it. Now that everything is behind me, I would read these notes with interest.
But if you take and restore the chronology, you get a tragicomedy with geography in several parts.
PART 1. BEGINNING.
...somewhere on February 22, Angelina and I gathered in her dorm and started working on the gramophone (this will be a memorable day when our creative tandem began). She was very optimistic, saying that we would do it in three weekends and in mid-March we would go for a walk in St. Petersburg.
For work we needed:
- printouts of pictures of a gramophone found on the Internet
- shoe box - 1 pc. - gramophone base
- plasticine - several kg - from it we make a matrix from which we will remove the mold.
- wire - several meters - frame for horn
- pliers, breadboard knife, nails
The next weekend I arrived with a package of wires of various thicknesses. When making the frame of the horn, we decided that the matrix should be solid in order to remove 3 papier-mâché forms from it (!!!), and then paint them. And then we will get not just gramophones, but art objects. We will give one masterpiece to Sashka, and keep the rest for ourselves.
The first days of our joint creativity were like the saying goes:
“We plowed!” said the fly, getting off the horse.” I was this same fly, because... Lina did almost everything, and I just gave, held, and followed instructions.
She's a sculptor, she knows.
PART 2. ONLY CATS ARE BORN FAST
A mounth later. I came almost every Saturday to Linka and the gramophone. More than the promised 3 weekends had already passed, and work on it was still going on and there was no end in sight. Lina's optimism began to wane, which worried me greatly. After all, if she doesn’t know, then I especially don’t know what and how to do next. We are no longer talking about 3 forms.
There were also problems with plasticine. Under its weight, the frame sagged and the horn fell. We built all sorts of fortification structures that briefly saved our hopeless situation.
But we didn’t give up and continued to do our job.
And during the breaks we had Lunch. Yes, yes, with a capital letter. Lina also approached cooking very creatively. I selected all the ingredients according to color and content. So that it is not only beautiful, tasty, but also healthy. She still failed to make me a vegetarian, because... every time I came with my own canned goods :))
Another weekend flew by during which Lina and I did not meet. Either I or she had important things to do.
She reassured me that there was still a lot of work to do at rehearsals and we had more than enough time.
She's an actress there. She knows.
This might have been the case if Sashka had not clearly indicated to us the timing.
April. I came again to Lina and the gramophone.
According to plan:
- Finishing the matrix
- cover the entire gramophone with melted wax
- glue pieces of paper soaked in water in layers
Either a dragon or a scaly fish
We accomplished everything that was in the plan. Lina promised that she would glue the layers of paper herself. And then I’ll come to her to take off my uniform. And after the weekend we will quickly paint it. In short, a month of work is the ceiling.
PART 3. CHEF, EVERYTHING IS LOST: THE CAST IS REMOVED, THE CLIENT LEAVES
On April 28, Lina called and said that she was urgently going home. Force Majeure. Will be back on May 10th. And then he will continue intensive work on our musical apparatus. And we need it by May 18th.
In the evening of the same day, the gramophone traveled by taxi from the Timiryazevsky district to the city of Odintsovo.
On the morning of April 29, I unpacked it and began to look at it from all sides. The work has been done, but the result is ugh and no. The first thing I did was remove the first paper layer from the horn, and then the plasticine, exposing wire frame. I don’t know how to correct the mistakes made. One wish - out of sight! It was a shame to look at this unit. It didn't turn out the way Linka and I saw it. But heaven knows that in our imagination he was a beautiful object. It seemed to me that now not only my parents, but also people from the neighboring windows of the houses see this shame. It cannot be shown to anyone. And even more so putting it on stage.
In the evening I glued another shoe box to the base. I begged my neighbors for a piece of cardboard from which I made a disc for the record. I extended the horn by one ring. After which the silhouette of the gramophone began to be guessed. But the bell still didn’t hold up well and fell.
April 30. I broke (intentionally, not accidentally) the horn. The gramophone was gone.
It’s better for Sashka not to say anything about this.
PART 4. SECOND LIFE
On the morning of May 1, I left for the dacha with my parents.
Options regarding future fate gramophone = 0.
I spent the whole day coming up with a speech that I would give to Sashka when she found out that on the eve of the general run-through I had screwed up the whole case for her.
- printouts of gramophone pictures
- Styrofoam
- breadboard knife (in the absence of one, it was replaced with a kitchen knife)
- PVA glue, a lot of newspapers - for papier-mâché
then two more 8-hedrons, 35 and 25 cm
"Cleaned up" the edges
This is the shape of the horn. Newspapers absorbed water well
and ready for the first, glue-free layer.
By May 9, the horn was attached to the base. Dad fixed the base frame and now everything is holding relatively tightly.Will it withstand being dropped 3 times? (as required by the script)
12 layers of finely chopped pieces of newspaper on the horn, and 4 (?) layers
paper pulp (made up of soaked cheap toilet paper) on the box.
PART 5. WHAT IS A GRAMOPHONE HIDDEN IN ITSELF?
On May 9, I showed Sashka the gramophone. I was very afraid of her resume. Although by this time she already knew about all our difficulties, the result might not have satisfied her. And then it would be pointless to make excuses, and there would no longer be a chance to form a good opinion about yourself.
While we walked from her house to mine, and this is through the entire city of Odintsovo, I crossed my fingers behind my back, like in childhood. And before my eyes were costumes sewn by her hands for the actors participating in the play. They seemed perfect to me, and my gramophone seemed like the creation of crazy hands. But Sashka seemed to like the device, because... This photo was taken on her phone. Or maybe she thought that at least it would be like this rather than nothing...
First, perhaps, we will have to answer another question: what is a gramophone?
After all, you have hardly seen this car. But you probably know from your parents’ stories about the gramophone. So, the gramophone is almost the same. Only in appearance he was different. The gramophone had a large tin horn with a bell sticking out from above.
Then they came up with a portable gramophone. Instead of a box, we made a convenient lockable suitcase with a carrying handle. The horn was rolled up and hidden inside the suitcase. It turned out much more beautiful and convenient. For the first time such a portable gramophone was produced by the French company "Brothers Pathé". They called him by their last name “Pathefon”, or “Pathefon”. And gramophone records are still called gramophone records.
The gramophone and gramophone replaced the record player and radio, and they were replaced by tape recorders.
The ancestor of the record player, the gramophone, appeared a long time ago, at the end of the 19th century.
At that time there was no cinema, no radio, no television. Only living people sang. It never occurred to anyone that the machine could also sing. And even the inventor of the “singing machine” Thomas Alva Edison himself had some doubts: would he sing or not?
The mechanic made an incomprehensible device based on Edison’s drawing. All the laboratory staff gathered. Give it a try! Edison put a wax-covered roller into the machine, cleared his throat and hesitantly sang an old children's song:
“Our Mary has a ram, he is more faithful than a dog. Wherever Mary goes, the ram follows her!”
The staff chuckled. Edison had no talent for singing. But it was too late to retreat, and he sang the song to the end. Then he placed the needle at the beginning of the track on the wax roller and turned the handle. And then a miracle happened. The car started singing! Not the one or two vague words Edison was hoping to hear. No, the whole song, from beginning to end, flowed from a black megaphone!
The employees froze. Then they screamed in delight and danced in a round dance around Edison and his wonderful invention. Then everyone at once, interrupting each other, began talking, shouting, singing into a bullhorn. All night until the morning they recorded and listened to their voices. After all, on Edison’s first device it was possible not only to listen to sound, but also to record it. But this device - it was called a phonograph - sounded much worse than the current gramophone. The sound was quiet, intermittent, rattling in places. But still it was an unheard of miracle!
Later this miracle became the most common thing. Looking closely at the gramophone record, you can see that the grooves on it are uneven. They are dotted with convolutions, and for long-playing records - with indentations. As the record rotates, the needle slides along the groove. Convolutions or depressions make it tremble and hesitate. These vibrations are sound.
Gramophone - do it yourself
You can make a simple pickup yourself - a device that reproduces a gramophone recording. To do this, you only need a sheet of drawing paper, a thick needle and a little glue.
From paper, cut out a square with a side of 30-40 cm. Roll this square into a “pound”, as shown in the figure.
The top of the “pound” should be in one of the corners of the square. Place the sides one on top of the other and carefully glue them together with wood glue or casein glue.
Put it on the “pound” in the place of gluing paper clip. Place it with a seam on the table and press down the gluing from the inside with weights. Leave it to dry in this position until the morning.
Stick the needle near the end of the dried “pound”. Pierce both walls through. Just first look carefully at the picture to see what the correct angle of the needle should be. Secure the needle with a drop of glue or sealing wax.
Take the pickup by the protruding corner of the “stick” and lower the stylus onto the groove of the rotating record. “Funtik” will sing!
Of course, your homemade pickup will sound much worse than the factory one. Not so loud, not so clear. But Edison's first phonograph sounded about the same.
The idea to restore the old gramophone came immediately after I sold mine. I found an inexpensive PT-3 gramophone from the Glavshirpotreb plant on Avito, in poor condition, and began to restore it.
In this article I will describe in detail, in the form of instructions, how I restored this gramophone. Photos of the process and result are attached.
Choosing a gramophone
website
There are many advertisements on Avito for the sale of gramophones, but for the most part the only difference is the price. Almost everyone is in the same condition - bad.
After looking at several options, I settled on the PT-3 gramophone from the Glavshirpotreb plant for 3,500 rubles. The condition was depressing: dents on the body, the upholstery was torn, with indelible stains and traces of time, all the metal was in a semi-rusty state. But the spring winding was enough to reproduce almost 2 sides of the record.
Advice: When purchasing, first of all pay attention to the spring (when fully wound, it should play 2 sides of the record) and the complete set. I do not recommend buying a gramophone with severe rust. The price is approximately 4 - 5 thousand rubles.
Restoration of a gramophone
I divided the restoration process into 4 stages:
- Pasting the body with new material
- Cleaning and polishing all metal elements
- Cleaning and painting the bell
- Engine cleaning and lubrication
First of all, I disassembled the gramophone into parts: I put the engine and three wooden parts of the case aside, and disassembled all the other parts down to the screw and put them in separate zip bags and put them in a container so that nothing was lost.
Important: When disassembling the tonearm, do not lose the bearings - they are very small and it is very difficult to find similar ones!
First, I peeled off all the dermantine from the body and began to clean it of traces of glue and remnants of fabric. Over the course of two evenings, I completely sanded all three parts of the body and covered large dents on the body with wood putty. I glued all the seams of the bottom and lid with wood glue.
Choosing new upholstery was not easy - the store offered me about 15 types of black colors alone! I settled on inexpensive, but with a very beautiful structure, black leatherette on a fabric basis. I don’t remember the exact size and price, I think I bought 2x1.2 meters for 1500 ₽.
As adhesives, I chose Moment adhesive gel and super glue from the same company. I also bought a set of plastic spatulas, which are used in apartment renovations.
website I started pasting the case with the simplest part - the middle part of the case (in the photo there is already the top cover), on which the engine, tonearm and the entire body kit are attached. I spread the leatherette on the table and put the body on it and traced the outline with a pen, adding 4-6 centimeters on each side for gluing the sides and securely fastening it with reverse side. Cut it out and started gluing: applied glue even layer with a spatula on the body and fabric base, let it soak for 30-60 seconds, as written in the instructions for the glue, and connected the body and leatherette together. Using a clean spatula, I went over the leatherette with force from above so that the glue was distributed and the leatherette stuck evenly. I put it under the press.
The next day, after the first side was glued, I started cutting the corners - very carefully and with a large margin. Then I glued the side edges and pieces of leatherette on the back with superglue. I very carefully glued each corner and cut off the excess leatherette. Then I made cuts on the large holes and, bending them inside the body, also glued them with superglue. This was the simplest part of the case and took only two evenings of work.
I did approximately the same thing with the other two parts, but it took much more time. Every day I glued one side and left it to dry under pressure until next day. For sizing inside I sawed the lids to the size of pieces of wood, which I pressed with cheap plastic clamps.
website The most time was spent on the corners. I left a small supply of leatherette in all corners and glued it at the last moment. I glued them overlapping, although in the original the corners were made butt to butt, but this is too much work.
Gluing the entire body took the most time - about 2 weeks of work in the evenings and 4 whole days on weekends.
Every day of work on the gramophone I began by gluing the case, then put it aside under pressure and started on something else.
It took about 2-3 evenings to clean the bell from dirt, rust and remnants of old cracked and half-erased paint. Large parts were cleaned with a screwdriver and a brush, small parts with an engraver with a brush. After cleaning the bell, it was painted with two coats of nitro spray paint.
website The easiest step was rebuilding the engine, although I had to struggle a bit with the spring. The engine was disassembled down to the last screw, cleaned of dust, dirt and rust, lubricated and put back together. Cleaned with the same engraver with different attachments. In total it took about 2 evenings.
One of last stages All metal elements were cleaned and polished, right down to the screws. If there were no particular problems with cleaning, except that the needles from Chinese cart brushes fly in all directions, digging into the skin (be sure to use safety glasses), then I had to tinker with grinding for quite a long time.
The entire cleaning took 4-5 days and 7 days, including two days off, were spent on sanding.
website When all these stages were completed, the most enjoyable part came - assembly. There were no problems with assembly; everything was assembled in a couple of hours. And then, the first midterm test!
After that, all that was left was to clean the body from finger stains and wipe off all traces of polishing paste. Buy and cut a new felt circle.
That's all! The result exceeded all expectations!
website 
website According to the results: The restoration process took 3 weeks. In my work, I made a couple of miscalculations: once I cut the leatherette incorrectly, 2 cm was missing on one side, I lost a couple of screws and, worst of all, several bearings; some corners were not quite straight. Otherwise, everything is very neat and beautiful.
Gramophone price
All the money I spent on buying a gramophone and restoring it:
- 3500 ₽ – old gramophone on Avito
- 1500 ₽ – grinding wheels, brushes, sandpaper, etc.
- 1000 ₽ - all sorts of little things: spatulas, putty, screws, stationery knife, clamps, nitro paint, etc.
- 2000 ₽ - glue (1 large tube of gel, 3 medium and 15 tubes of super glue)
- 1000 ₽ – felt
The total price for the gramophone turned out to be around 9,000 rubles.
Ready to answer any questions in the comments.
Yulia Mandrina
Late autumn has arrived. The earth was covered with an autumn carpet.
This inspired me to create an autumn gramophone and writing a poem
*Melody of Autumn*
Autumn melody, in sound gramophone
It will sadly remind us of separation
On an old record.
Exciting. trembling sounds.
Overflows carry you into distant dreams
Under the rustle of golden leaves.
Magic motifs will bring sadness
There are memories of the past in my soul.
Dreams, love, filled the soul
Bursting into the melancholy of hearts with a gentle moan
And the autumn melody enchants
Sounding over the lonely gramophone.
I present to your attention.
For work you will need:
rank those. knee
5 l. capacity
sunflower seeds, chestnuts, hawthorn leaves
I present to your attention master class on making a gramophone
Publications on the topic:
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