RCA late 60's/early 70's console stereo

[mocom70]

I picked up a nice unit at a community sale, cabinet in good condition, everything works great. The controls needed a squirt of contact cleaner, though. My issue is the RCA tone arm. This is the arm with the little square of felt(?) on the end bottom. The cloth or felt is missing and the arm lays on the record with no protection. Is there anywhere you can get this material or is there something I can attach so I can use the turntable? I had the same set up on an RCA portable unit I had when I was a teenager. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

[blue_lateral]

I don't know the answer to that, but welcome to the forum.

John

[ozmoid]

mocom70, welcome to AK! I'm not familiar with that set-up, but someone around might be

Todd

[Tony V]

I just used a small piece of soft felt that i cut to fit on mine. Thats all they used on them originally. I used a tiny drop of glue to attach it and it works fine on mine. Dont use too much glue or it will saturate the felt and you wont get any protection from it. What i did was put a drop of glue on a sewing needle and used that to apply the glue to the plastic and stuck the felt to that and it worked perfect. Dont get any glue on the rest of the end piece as that also holds your cartridge in and you want that to be free just in case you ever have to replace the cartridge in the future. You can sometimes find felt that has an adhesive backing such as those felt dots you put on the bottom of stuff which you can find at craft stores. Of course you'll have to find the thin stuff but it will save you from having to use glue. In either case you'll need a sharp pair of scissors or a razor blade to cut such a small piece without it fraying. It takes patience and a steady hand but it works. Good Luck and welcome to the forum!
-Tony

P.S. For those of you that dont know what we're talking about ...RCA Victor put out a turntable from the early to mid 60's that used a wide tonearm that had a floating cartridge in it. The pointer on the end actually sat on the record and kept the hinged cartridge in place. On the bottom of the pointer had a piece of felt that protected the plastic pointer from comming into contact with the record which kept it from doing damage, held the front of the cartridge in and also acted sort of like a dust brush. Of course over the years the glue broke down and the felt would fall off. With the plastic comming in full contact with the record, it would cause alot of noise and also put the records in risk of being damaged. The stand out of this changer was that it had a huge oval record hold down arm for the spindle when playing multiple records. It also had a full size platter so the 12 inch records were fully supported. Since the cartridge floats, the only weight on the stylus was the weight of the cartridge instead of the arm. The stylus for this cartridge actually had two separate needles and shafts that when you selected between lp and 78 it slid from side to side instead of flipping. The drawback was the felt problem. Otherwise it was a great turntable.

[Bobby Brady]

The '64 RCA I have is just like what Tony described. The rubber pad on my turntable turned to cracks and I had to scrape it off the chrome. If someone has one available please let me know.
I use a '72 RCA that has the last version of that floating cartridge. There is an odd little orange square on the top of the tone arm over the needle area. The arm is chromed plastic and the tiny piece for you fingers to lift the tone arm is broken off and missing so I need a tone arm for that one.
I hope to find one of those RCA turntables with the speed strobe light in the corner. I used one once that had gold tinted chrome all over from like '67 in a home entertainment center.
I have to do the felt stuff too.

[mocom70]

Thanks, Tony V. This was my thought but was just curious if there were anything else available. This unit had no back so I have no model number or year of manufacture but it must be early 70's as the hold down arm for holding a stack secure is not a wide oval but an "F" shape at the end over the records. This stylus flips and it does have the strobe in the lower left corner of the turntable. I thought it was very retro as when you open the cover for the turntable. There is a small plaque that reads "New Vista Victrola".

[Tony V]

If you had a pic of the turntable you could share might help in giving a more specific answer. It could help us date it also. Some of these turntables had a date stamped on the underside of it which might help.
-Tony