Capehart 16-E Flipover Changer

Just about finished with my Maggy Concert Grand so I'm getting started on a Capehart I picked up a couple of years ago. Actually, got the amp done and it, along with the receiver are working just fine. Now it's time to overhaul the 16-E record changer (flip-over). According to the date stamped on the changer solenoid capacitor this unit comes from 1941 and has a serial number of 17XXX. I know the number I just can't remember it! It looks like the mechanics are complete and nothing broken but this will take some time in degreasing the huge mechanism. Reminds me of the insides of a giant clock. According to the service manual I've been reading they used some form of graphite grease to lube the various cogs, wheels, and quadrants. Filthy stuff to work on, but comes off fairly easily. It doesn't cake and harden quite like a more petroleum based lube. What amazes me is the amount of engineering that must have gone into producing this thing. Finely built parts with micro tolerances and bearings of all types everywhere. I've already had the old crystal cartridge rebuilt and can hardly wait to get this thing fired up again. This unit has a separate 1/4 horse or smaller maybe Bodine or Emerson motor which sits on the bottom platform of the cabinet. It is connected thru a gear box, then up to a flexible shaft which connects to the main turntable shaft and gear assembly which drives the entire mechanism. I'm wondering if anyone else has worked on these before? I can tell there will be many more hours spent on cleaning this thing up and resynchronizing the various parts. Fortunately, there are several sections on making adjustments to critical parts for alignment, etc. Possibly, if I get this thing finished I will try and see if I can somehow re-engineer the cartridge head to accomodate a GE variable reluctance cartridge and put in a preamp for that. The main problem will be in changing the present tracking pressure from pounds to grams!

The unit might not track records with the VR cartridge without some re-engineering of the arm bearings and the trip mechanism.

There are some adjustments that, if not made exactly right, will cause it to break records.

Does yours have the side counter that shuts it off after a dialed number of sides?

So far my unit seems to be handling the records just fine. NO breakage noted of any kind. Occasionally I'll see some chips from the edges, but I attribute this to age of the discs. I've replaced most of the felt where the records touch, and the "well" where the records drop in the back I've relined with some foam weatherstripping material. Not started on changing the cartridge to a GE VR yet. I'd like to find out what the tracking force is for this type of cartridge. I know it is substaintially less than the 'boat anchor' weight of the original Astatic B-2. As long as the needle/cartridge will track the record correctly, I see no issue with it also tripping the switch to begin the change cycle. Mine is quite sensitive and requires very little effort to operate. Thanks for your input.

Update on trials and errors with the rebuilt Astatic B-2 cartridge. I was complaining of low volume (in my opinion) coming from the cartridge so as recommended by some others I tried a couple of different preamps to boost the signal level. The best result and quite satisfactory was with an old GE UPX003 VR cartridge preamp. It seems to do the best, and even with NO padding works just fine. The signal level now is sufficient to drive the amp to very nice powerful listening level with very good adjustment of bass and treble controls on the tuner chassis. There is so much difference between these old 78's in the way they were recorded, different levels, mics, etc. that it seems no matter what we do nothing will completely compensate for these varying original circumstances. Probably the best sounding discs are some of the later pop discs recorded in the 50's. Probably had better mikes and seem to be recorded at a higher level. Maybe for the jukebox use?? So, I guess I'll mount this little GE preamp in the back, and hook it into the power outlet for the changer motor so that it will turn off and on whenever the changer is in use. Maybe this will be of some help for others in the future trying to get one of these Capeharts back up to snuff.

Note that there are 5 different kinds of 78 rpm records.

1. Acoustic records made before 1930-32. These are made of hard shellac, and might chip a little in the Capehart.

2. Electronically recorded records made of softer shellac from 1930-32 to 1939. These are resilient, and should have no trouble in the Capehart.

3. Wartime records made from substitute materials from 1939 to 1946. These can be very brittle, and can break in the Capehart changer. These really should not be used in record changers, and should not be dropped from changer spindles unless they are the sloped spindles of the Webster or Philco changers. But some companies had more durable records than others had. Capehart-Farnsworth stopped making record changers because their changers were breaking these records.

4. Postwar 78 records to about 1954. These are again made of good shellac, and should work in the Capehart changer. Some of the later ones are recorded with the RIAA curve.

5. Vinyl and styrene 78s from 1954 on. While these should change in the Capehart with no problems (except maybe the thickness of the records), the pickup will quickly wear these out. Most of them are recorded with the RIAA curve.

But note that MacGregor and several other square dance companies were making shellac square dance calling records in the prewar American 78 curve used by their square dance calling machines until the mid 1960s. These are the same as the postwar records. Some children's 78 records were also made with this curve into the mid 1960s.

This is quite interesting information and I'll use it as I can in stacking discs in the Capehart. Since most of the records produced have no written indication of when they were produced it still can be difficult to determine what it is that you may have in your inventory. Just looking at the labels sometimes, after having a fair knowledge of when they might have been recorded will help.

Occasionally, a 10" disc will not slide onto the center spindle, but this is rare. I'm not a perfectionist and know that it will be impossible to have a 100% success rate in handling these discs. Every mechanical piece of equipment has its limitations and I accept that. It is still amazing to see this thing in operation and I use it with the idea that there may be problems from time to time.

I will probably NOT be playing any square dance records any time soon. My tastes run to classical 12" multi disc sets and the 10" popular stuff from the 40's and 50's which sound very good on this machine.

Thanks for your comments and adding to the knowledge base available to us for dealing with these old gems.

Watch most of the swing band records from World War II - they are the ones made of the substitute materials. If you still have the paper jackets, many of them showed the layered construction of the record. I have one record where the surface on one side de-laminated (the other side works), and had a few break before I found out about the use of substitute materials.

I found out about the square dance records at an auction. I got a large box of them for $2. I'm not really into square dance, but many of the tunes I knew from elsewhere and the variations are interesting.

I have a Capehart 400M that I restored a couple of years ago. I have been wrestling with the cartridge issue, which for me is the weakest link in the system. I sent the original B2 cartridge for a rebuild by West-tech and it works just OK. I have a still working NOS astatic crystal cartridge that sounds just OK as well. I did try an older GE VR cartridge with preamp and it sounded by far the best. Of course the problem is tracking a 20 gram cartridge with 90 grams tracking force. The pickup seems to require that tracking force to make the change cycle work properly and repeatedly. I would like to hear from other pre-war Capehart owners who might be having better success. The amplifiers and speakers are capable of so much more. Tom

Unfortunately, I haven't yet done anything more on trying to change over the cartridge to a GE style which I'm sure would produce much better results. Alas, the tracking force issue. I'm not sure what the GE is rated at but probably quite a bit lower than 20 grams!. I suppose this is one of the reasons the newer Capeharts have the newer, lighter tone arm with the magnetic cartridge. Much less record wear too, of course. Hopefully I'll get to this sometime later this year. Too many projects. Just got my Rodgers 3 manual analog organ pretty much up and going to my satisfaction, but there are always things to "tweak". Keeps me out of trouble. Darn.

You and I do have similar interests. How old is the Rodgers organ and what model? Years ago I had a Gulbransen Rialto theater organ that was quite something for its time. Two sets of tone generators for the reeds/orchestral voices and another set for the tibias. It ran into a special multichannel Leslie. Traded it years ago for a Kawai grand piano. You're right about the tracking force for the GE. I figured 20 grams would be the absolute max without destroying the diamond stylus in fast order. The post-war Capehart changer was designed for a much lighter tracking force. Another friend in Easton, PA has a pre-war Scott Philharmonic custom with a Capehart changer and he is working to install a GE on that unit. I need to contact him and find out if he's made any progress. Tom

There was an article in Audio magazine around 1980 or so where they fashioned a new tonearm out of balsa wood to replace the original in a late 30's Capehart
and had it tracking around five grams.

My Rodgers is from about 1981-85 or so. It is a 'church' variety model Providence 900B which is equipped to interface via multiplex with 9 ranks of pipes. It has 2 main generators, plus a 61 note celeste generator. Quite effective with 6 100 watt amps in the console and 7 speaker systems including a bass cabinet with two 15" woofers. It will shake the house. I am now able to compete with the morons in the Texas Trucks with the continual 'boom boom boom' you can hear for miles around! The console is 3 manual with lighted drawknobs and couplers. Runs on a Zilog Z80 CPU with hundreds of digital chips for keying functions. It apparently was struck by some power surge which damaged a bunch of chips. I replaced all of them to be on the safe side. Fortunately most of them were in sockets. Still quite a chore. Now it is working to my satisfaction.