Do anyone of you guys own a Howard 307 or maybe any of the 300 series Howard models?
The reason is that mine is missing the original friction wheel thingie or something that fits over the end of the tuning shaft knob. It is positioned at right angles to the large tunner wheel that the dial string goes around.
This friction thingie is ( I guess) supposed to rub against the edge of the large wheel. There are even little teeth along that edge of the wheel to meet with whatever this thing is supposed to be.
There is a spring along the dial knob shaft behind the front panel that pushes a washer toward the rear of the knob shaft..where at the end of the shaft there is a 1/4" space then a washer at the end.
So I guessed that there is supposed to be maybe some kind of little rubber wheel that fits on the end here... and that may be tapered along the outer edge where it meets the big wheel and the spring keeps pressure against it.
But this is all purely conjecture.
As a wild guess I tried to slip a rubber grommet over the shaft and that fits the shaft ok... and the O.D. of the grommet is just about right to reach the big condenser tuning wheel... but it doesnt really seem to catch it right along that toothed edge as I hoped it would as it's a bit small.
So it sort of rubs along the side and it does sort-of work ...so to speak... but kind of poorly.
The tension spring extends the shaft rearward and seems to keep pushing it such that the grommet at the end is further down the side of the big wheel and it also starts to slip now and then.
If I knew what's really supposed to be there it may help me figure out how to fix this thing.

So if any of you have this model... or even documentation that shows it or describes it I sure would be greatful.

Well.... if necessity is the mother-f'er of invention ...then..

I may have actually solved my own problem here with this missing friction wheel thingie.

The print actually does define the mechanism as a "rubber tipped shaft" friction drive.

My problem was that the make-shif grommet I WAS using that I stretched over the 1/4" diameter shaft wasn't shaped right on the outer diameter to meet the big wheel edge properly. Seemed like I really needed something with a larger OD that fits on front and slightly to the side of the big wheel so the two can meet at right angles better.
That seemed to mean that the rubber thingie might need to be tapered or cone shaped to fit properly.
Well... looking around at my old old rusty 1966 garage tool box... I came across a box of various sized hard rubber faucet seat washers...TAPERED too !!!
So I cerfully drilled out the inside diameter to 1/4" and in the tightest of cramped locations I tried ( with all my 6 fingers that I have left...lol)
...tried to force this hard rubber washer up over the back of the shaft 76 flat metal stop-washer on the end and between that washer and the next larger stop-washer about a 1/4" further down the shaft.
Oh my god... it was worse than trying to force a baby back up into that space from which it was just squished out!!

In fact I will say it was harder than "trying to pick up a turd by the clean end" .... !!

... BUT I DID it.... there it is & fits against that big whell exactly as I might have ever imagined it. Now if that somewhat poorly stretchable hard-type rubber doesn't start to split or crack somehow ... I think I may have solved my own problem

But thank you for any imput or feedback you mechanically creative types may have about any better solutions guys.

That's what I did to my Airline tele-dial radio. The radio doesn't actually have a real tele-dial. It just has a dial with holes in it so you can quickly spin the wheel around. It then has a regular tuning knob. And then it even has a fine tuning knob. The knob has a faucet washer on the inside, and you push it forward to rub against the plastic tele-dial wheel. Talk about cheap tricks! I bet whoever bought this elegant but cheap 5 tuber thought they were getting the best of the best with three different ways to tune in the station! WOW! The power transformer in this set doesn't even put out much. It puts out about 200 unloaded. Then, once the tubes warm up, it goes down to about 150. I've seen doorbell transformers that were bigger than this one!

T.