Now that I had both the gramophone and the 78rpm records it was time to test it. I tentatively wound the handle being careful not to overwind it (especially after wrecking a nice victorian mantle clock by overwinding it once) and set it playing. I had to re-use an old needle for testing purposes as I was still awaiting the arrival of 400 new ones from the Netherlands. It started out well enough, albeit a bit crackly and tinny.......but when the vocals began it was obviously playing far too slowly. I adjusted the speed dial. It got better. Then worse again. And slowly ground to a halt after around 30 seconds.
I then removed the turntable and unscrewed the deck to see if there was anything obviously wrong with the motor. Everything looked ok and I wasn't going to risk opening up the spring barrel (very dangerous!).
After a bit of googling I came upon a very good source of gramophone info (http://www.gramophones.info/graminformation.html) which suggested its almost impossible to overwind a gramophone. So I decided to give it one last go before admitting defeat and relisting it. I wound it and wound it and wound it until eventually I could feel resistance and could wind it no more. Set it off playing and to my relief it worked perfectly and would last both sides of a 12". Phew!
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