GARRARD SPRING MOTOR SPECIFICATIONS

Firstly, I would like to thank all the people who have helped me compile these gramophone motor pages. It would not have been possible without their help, hard work and generosity. They provided pictures, illustrations and a mountain of invaluable information. Christopher Proudfoot, Graham Rankin, Roger Mackey and Francis James.

• Dates are subjective and are taken from advertisement and dated catalogues
• Spring sizes and information is taken from an October 1954 Vulcan mainsprings catalogue re-printed in Talking Machine Review 22. It can be downloaded here at Archive.com. Spring ends are pictured below. Other spring manufacturers like EMO and Selecta have varying lengths for the same motor
• Governors:
  • Early governors were the simple three ball type
  • Garrard patented their own in 1927/28 having angled mounting bearings
  • Improved patent in 1929: It had flattened balls screwed onto the inside of the governor springs
  • 1930 patent: Garrard introduced the clip-on governor spring which reduced price by eliminating screws and was a significant improvement reducing "racing governor" where an un-ballanced set of three governors would set the motor shuddering
  Pictures in gallery below
• Governor control methods:
  • DIAL: A springed friction pad controlled by a lever below the motorboard. The lever raised and lowered by a dial mounted on top of the motorboard
  • LEVER: Governor adjustment mounted on the side of the frame with a twist rod. An extra hole was drilled in the motorboard and an above motorboard lever ran under the turntable to a speed control plate
  • TWIST: This method introduced in the Junior B: All later models have this system. It worked like the lever method above the motorboard. "..not really an improvement, just a cheaper and simpler system. In theory, it would give a less progressive control of speed, because it works by twisting the friction pad, so that the area in contact with the disc will alter significantly when the lever is moved." Christopher Proudfoot
  Pictures in gallery below
• Early motors often had expensive solid steel base plates. These were replaced with thin pressed steel plates which reduced costs and also provided more room for governor expansion
• Please contact me for any corrections or errors

You can download this list as an Excel spreadsheet or a PDF.