Spindle Holes

The first question we always have about any single that we come across is what size the spindle hole is. It's been a lingering issue ever since we got Jolene.

When newer microgroove records were being introduced during World War II, Columbia and RCA were having a format war of sorts over the playback speed and size of records. The players each manufactured did not have selectable speeds, so if you bought an RCA player, it could only play RCA records. Besides the speed issue, the players had different spindle sizes to further complicate things.

The formats eventually came to the standards that we know today: 12" albums are generally 33 1/3 rpm, and 7" singles are generally 45 rpm. For decades, 7" singles kept the larger doughnut hole spindle size. This helped jukebox mechanisms change records easily. This is exactly how Jolene works. She likes the doughnut hole singles.

Some 7" records were released that played at 33 1/3 rpm in order to fit more music on each side. Jukeboxes were fitted with automatic speed selectors to be able to play records at either 45 rpm or 33 1/3 rpm. The jukebox knew what speed to play a record at based on the size of its spindle hole. A large hole meant 45, and a small hole meant 33 1/3. Jolene does not have an automatic speed selector mechanism, but the manual makes reference to it being an optional accessory. I am not really sure if finding and installing one is still possible, but it would be nice.

Of course, this is only how things worked in America. In the UK, 7" records only have small spindle holes regardless of playback speed. So even if Jolene had an automatic speed selector that would allow her to change and play records with a small spindle hole, they would play at 33 1/3, which is usually the wrong speed.

All of this information is what I've pieced together from ancient message board posts and talking to guys at record stores. I might be wrong about some of it.

Now we finally come to modern 7" records, which almost never have a large spindle hole anymore, even though every record player you buy comes with a spindle hole adapter and most people that buy records have stacks of those plastic yellow ones. This is probably not a problem to most of the world, but it is a big problem for Jolene.

A small spindle hole on a record is usually a deal-breaker for us. We've opted not to buy a lot of cool newer singles because Jolene can't play them. This has brought us to our only plausible solution, cutting giant holes in our records.



"Dinking" is the only term I've been able to find for this process, although I've mostly seen the word being used in the UK. There may be an American term for the process. I would really love to know what it is. I've also found pictures of smaller hand-held dinkers and UK websites that offer them for £20 to £30. This seems a little steep, and the websites are also usually sold out of them. I've read a lot of horror stories on message boards of people destroying records while using them, or while using many makeshift methods involving drill presses or other power tools.





Because of the potential to forever destroy records that are not always easy to come by and can be expensive, and because of the expensive involved in most of the dinking methods we found, we have yet to attempt dinking. After more than a year with Jolene, though, we're really tired of this being an issue.

I think we might end up trying this method.



We'll let you know how it goes.