edisonphonoworks wrote:Chuck is right about it not being free money! It can take a good part of a day, fiddling with the ski jumps to make them so they are not too tall, or too short, You should be able to record cylinders, without a spacer from 2.120-2.195" in diameter at the max. The cylinder recording stylus was one that Rich Goodin and I designed, and Chuck is the only authorized person with the purchase order. It seems that some people in this collector community think they have the privilege to interfere with other peoples Sources. The company that makes the stylus is very serious in preventing industrial espionage, which is a serious crime, and tipped us off to collectors who tried to steal the information. I have used these recording styli for many years, with heavy industrial use, they are sharp and make outstanding recordings. It is good that now a few sources of good styli exists.
You are correct about that, sir!
Yep that whole episode from several years ago
when I first had contacted the manufacturer
asking about the possibility of resurrecting
this purchase order was a real hoot!!
The first thing they told me was that they'd
been dealing with a certain "someone" who shall not
be named here. They told me that this "guy" had been
drilling them for information and trying to get
lowball quotes from them.
They only started dealing seriously with me after I
gave them the purchase order number of the old
order for (100) cutters made by Shawn and Rich in 2001.
Then, to my great surprise, it turns out that they
had produced not just the straight-hole type (which is
what ended up comprising the 2001 order for (100)
pieces), but that in addition to those they had
also produced another style that has a tapered hole!
So I was able to obtain their drawings for both styles
and subsequently I obtained engineering samples
of both kinds for testing.
Not only that, but I have learned that this company
apparently made a large stock of both styles which
they have in inventory.
Disclaimer: I have the only known sample of the
tapered-hole style cutter. It is mounted in my
recorder #289270. As far as I know unless I learn
differently, I am the only person who has ever used
or tested one of these. Getting it to work properly
was a great challenge because it tends to dig in
and cut way too deeply, producing a bad echo.
It was only by using a tiny magnet and a tiny steel plate to create a lifting force to counter the force
of gravity (to lighten the weight without ruining
any original Edison parts), that I was finally able
to make the tapered-hole cutter to work properly.
This recorder's diaphragm also had to be very
severely dampened using a ton of beeswax and cardboard
(from a matchbook cover!) in order to finally get it
to settle down and make a decent recording.
I say all of this because I want to get it all
said now so that anyone who orders the tapered hole
cutters knows completely beforehand that they can and
do work superbly, but getting there setting them up
may not be exactly what most of us would expect.
Because if anyone ever has all those troubles setting
one of the tapered hole cutters up, they have been told
ahead of time that it's a very rough, seldomly traveled
road.