BELMONT RURAL PEOPLE - SECOND TIME AROUND
Graham adds juke boxes
to his techno-interests
Graham Parmenter with his fully restored 1948 Wurlitzer 1100 juke box.
(Below left) The Ami and (below right) the Rock-Ola


For years audio equipment has been getting smaller. But Graham Parmenter of Belmont is reversing the trend. He buys and restores early juke boxes probably a thousand times bigger than an Ipod Shuffle.

If anyone qualifies as a techno-polymath it’s Graham. Apart from solving jobs round the house most of us hand over to artisans he has an eye for the really difficult stuff and this is not his first appearance on the BR website. Switch over to Belmont People (Garage story four: The creatures) and you’ll find him practising taxidermy on animals ranging from a bullfinch to a racehorse. Since this often includes creating a mini-environment to dramatise the end-product (a tree trunk accommodating an inscrutable owl; a rabbit trembling in a burrow as a fox draws near) there’s a strong artistic element. But with juke boxes it’s all engineering, made trickier by systems that pre-date transistors and require an instinct for delicate electro-mechanical adjustments and repairs.

Press Evis, get Bill 
A typical problem occurred on a 1957 H model Ami, bought as “an absolute wreck” for £1700. It took Graham some time to disover why, as it were, if you pressed an Elvis Presley button you got a Bill Haley record. These days selection would not only be electronic, and comparatively simple to troubleshoot, but would be remote from the player system. But the Ami incorporated parts cannibalised from a different model notably a rotating disc which activated solenoids but not in the required order. This had to be replaced.

However the Ami has its good points. The mechanism that selects 45 rpm records – the heart of any juke box – can be slid out on rails at the back and then swivelled so that repairs are possible without major dismantling. A plus for the mechanic.

Pick-up design saves shellac
The most recent renovation was a 1948 Wurlitzer 1100 which plays 78 rpm shellac records on one side only. Despite its age this machine incorporates a comparatively advanced electro-magnetic pick-up (which, because of its low signal, requires its own pre-amp) as a means of reducing the weight at the stylus and thus cutting down disc wear. Not a negligible matter since juke boxes usually have a harder life than conventional record players.

Parts available, but at a price
The good news for Wurlitzers is that a US company still makes replacement plastic parts. The bad news is the price: the transparent dome through which record selection is visible costs $600. Although the work included repairing and replacing amplifier electronics based on thermionic valves (The sort that glow when the amp is switched on) Graham’s hardest job seems almost piffling in comparison. Part of the façade is decorated with a burl (ie, fancy wood grain) finish which comes as a £70 transfer kit. This resembles the way markings are applied to a model aeroplane – but on a much larger scale. A tiny slip and £70 would have gone down the drain.

As to the third acquisition a 1954 Rock-Ola Graham shrugs his shoulders. Having bought it, unloaded it and connected it in the utility room he had it working in the time it took to brew a pot of tea. A bit of a clean-up. No big deal.

It's the challenge, not the cash
It’s clear Graham acquires juke boxes for their technical challenge. A fourth ‘box was renovated and sold in order to buy the Ami. But even though the Wurlitzer is probably worth £10,000 the aim is not buying and selling, certainly not in the present financial climate. For one thing the supply of “silver period” machines pre-1965, when appearance was an important factor, is very limited and there is little interest in the remotely operated equipment that followed. For another, the number of potential customers attracted by these players and capable of accommodating them is also small.
(Above) Those were the days when amplifiers needed plenty of space. The empty sockets accommodate thermionic valves. (Below) Coin mechanism on the Wurlitzer takes nickels and dimes but can be bypassed for "free-play"

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