Recordette Sr. lead screw disengage?

[Gridlock]

Hey everybody i'm new here, thought i'd join because I got a wilcox gay Recordette Sr. here at a local vintage store (springfield, oregon) this week for 45 bucks. I've been looking ebay and stuff for a long time now and I just happened upon a local connection. but anyway, the thing is in VG+ i'd say(extra needles, no hum, real strong motor, old recorded-on discs, even the MICROPHONE works!), only thing missing is the little brush for wiping away the charf (or whatever it's called)
Per advice from a few other threads I opened the thing up and figured out how the lead screw engages and everything, made sure that the whole screw was not all gunky.
Now for my QUESTION??? I can't get the lead screw to disengage except manually! (opening the thing up and pulling the little tab)
What am I supposed to do?

THANK YOU!!!!

[piaptk]

Nice to have more PacNW cutters here! Nice score!

I'm not sure about the Recordette specifically, but most of those suitcase cutters didn't have a feedscrew disengage. At least the couple that I had didn't. I would always just take a screw and make my own lock groove, which sometimes worked and sometimes didn't.

[Gridlock]

yeah as far as I know i'm the only one in the eugene/springfield area who has anything like this. I'm thinking that i can drill a hole in the upper-right corner of the thing and make a little lever that's attached to the tab that keeps the screw engaged so I can just kind of wank the thing outta there. What a lame thing to not include on a recording machine, right? The manual that came with the thing is practically a disgrace. But I digress because it's a real sweet machine to have... so I did test the machine out on one of the old recordio discs, and the thing works great! I ended up using a hair dryer to blow the wax scrapin's away. I got a really great-sounding "hello? hello? hello?" what kind of machine do you have?

[Techie]

Perhaps I'm not understanding clearly, but.. the feed screw should engage when you pull up on the rear of the arm, and disengage when you push it back down to playback position. Probably easier to fix the problem than to drill a hole to get around it.

[d1rk]

try pull the tonearm upwards until the feedscrew touchs the v======

[Gridlock]

ok i figured it out, thanks, people

[opcode66]

You post what it was that you figured out. That way if someone else has the same problem they can resolve it too.

[Gridlock]

oh that makes sense- i figured out that to disengage the lead screw and stop the whole cutting process ya just kinda hold the arm up off the record and push down on the butt of the arm with a some bit of pressure and the lead screw disengages the hell out of itself. about the same amount of pressure as engaging it to begin with, maybe more. good luck recordette people

[morrisjer]

I have a Wilcox-Gay Recordette I bought a couple of weeks ago on ebay. I knew it didn't work when I bought it. I found a dealer on ebay that has the vacuum tubes for it and I am waiting on them. I would like to know where I could get the cutting and play needles for it?

Thanks

[Gridlock]

i found some old recordio equipment at an estate sale in the boonies and the guy just had regular steel needles from the old victrolas in the cutting heads. i've never tried that but it seems like it would work for simple embossing. also picked up the top plate from an old recordio for ten bucks. motor spins, i think i'm gonna give it to my buddy to tinker with. good luck with the recordette. mine spins slightly slower than 78 rpm