Bye Bye Wax Records

[rgordon939]

If there is anyone out there that is afraid to handle wax cylinders please let me know and I will take them off your hands. That's the least I can do to help.

Rich Gordon

[edisonphonoworks]

I actually treasure my metallic soap records more than my indestructible records. I don't even play them much when demonstrating to the public. While they are wonderful to not break; in my own opinion they have more surface noise and the groove shrinks, the skipping is so annoying! I only have a few Inde. that don't skip. Also the new resin records, while hearty and non breakable also are a slight bit more noisier, than a clean, mold free, original Edison Gold Moulded record. Though I think the noise on the resin records is the master blank used to make them. Of the new hard cylinders I have purchased Wizards have the least surface noise, and that is due to Peter Dilg deftly shaving his masters on 5 different shaving machines to finish, with a mirror gloss. One I have recorded by Vulcan while the sound quality is very good, the surface is dull and has a deal of noise. I also like the look of the Edison Gold Moulded or an original brown wax upon the mandrel. The resin imitation brown wax, have an odd air of something not quite right when on the phonograph mandrel? However that may be just the metallic soap guy in me. This just proves my theory that most of you are machine guys, not interested in the original music, or the history they contain. I am interested in all aspects of phonographic history. Below is a photo of a blank I made this week, notice the gloss on the surface. This is based on Chuck Richards method of making blanks where the mould is pre heated to 232C and the wax too. I though made a chemical discovery this week that dropped the noise floor considerably where when I was testing the blank, a soft giggle was heard as clear as could be 15 feet away every breath and articulation of consonant are as clear as any commercial records. Just need some artists to record. You would think people would want to be curious about using a recorder used to make original Edison masters? But I guess not. I know that Paul Morris is also a wax guy like me, there is just something magical about metallic soap!!!

[Phototone]

Some time back you posted about accepting a job with a group of people who where going to record vintage and traditional music using vintage technology. Are you still there?

[FellowCollector]

I have never purchased any of the new plastic cylinders although I do appreciate the efforts of those who make and offer them for sale. I do have a number of the 1980's Electrophone cylinders made by Dennis Valente but those came with phonographs that I purchased over the years. And, I have thousands of 2 minute and 4 minute Albany Indestructibles and US Everlasting and Lakeside cylinders which I dearly appreciate and enjoy listening to when I get a chance to play a few of them.

And I continue to enjoy the old original wax cylinders and, in spite of the bad reputation for the fragile 4 minute wax Amberols, I buy and will continue to buy every one that I can find that is in reasonable playing condition and priced fairly.

There are titles that were recorded on 4 minute wax Amberol that were never offered on any other Edison recorded medium (Blue Amberol, Diamond Disc). Are they fragile and is their composition breaking down over the years? There's no doubt about that. But, are there some that have been very well cared for over the years that still play and sound fantastic? Absolutely. And that is why I continue to buy and enjoy them.

And I will continue to buy as many original 2 minute wax cylinders as I can find that are in good playing condition.

There's nothing like the pleasure of owning and listening to the sound of a well preserved, well recorded original wax cylinder.

Doug

[Lucius1958]

I have never purchased any of the new plastic cylinders although I do appreciate the efforts of those who make and offer them for sale. I do have a number of the 1980's Electrophone cylinders made by Dennis Valente but those came with phonographs that I purchased over the years. And, I have thousands of 2 minute and 4 minute Albany Indestructibles and US Everlasting and Lakeside cylinders which I dearly appreciate and enjoy listening to when I get a chance to play a few of them.

And I continue to enjoy the old original wax cylinders and, in spite of the bad reputation for the fragile 4 minute wax Amberols, I buy and will continue to buy every one that I can find that is in reasonable playing condition and priced fairly.

There are titles that were recorded on 4 minute wax Amberol that were never offered on any other Edison recorded medium (Blue Amberol, Diamond Disc). Are they fragile and is their composition breaking down over the years? There's no doubt about that. But, are there some that have been very well cared for over the years that still play and sound fantastic? Absolutely. And that is why I continue to buy and enjoy them.

And I will continue to buy as many original 2 minute wax cylinders as I can find that are in good playing condition.

There's nothing like the pleasure of owning and listening to the sound of a well preserved, well recorded original wax cylinder.

Doug

I have not had the opportunity, either, to purchase any of the recent reproductions. The Electrophones were pretty good (except for the very early red ones); but there was always that slight loss of presence that comes with many dubs.

As for the wax Amberols, I am very leery of them, having lost several: it seems they must be handled as if they were unexploded bombs - and even then, they may self-destruct while your back is turned, if the weather changes... or if you simply look at them wrong. The sooner they are copied onto a more durable surface, the better.

But a good wax cylinder is always a joy to hear.

Bill

[Wolfe]

Are the wax Amberols the ones the dealers used to call "Damnberols" or is that something else ? Because the wax Amberols had a high breakage rate even when new, right?

[Lenoirstreetguy]

It's my understanding that " Damnberol" is what the British record buyers called the dubbed Blue Amberols. They seemed to have have keener ears than the North American public. By the late teens the City of London Phonograph Society was arguing among themselves whether or not the Blues were dubbed from Diamond Discs...which hadn't been formally introduced into the UK because of the war.
But in terms of wax it's a pity that most of the Amberols are undergoing some sort of odd catalytic change and I suspect a large proportion of them will become unplayable in the next few decades. All too many of mine have demonstrated the inimitable self-destruct feature where they commit suicide in the box. That said, some of them are quite stable ...without that white precipitate or bloom that seems to develop on the surface of so many. The reason for the good ones, as well as the bad, is that Jonas Aylsworth and the chemical department at the National Phonograph Co. continually fiddled with the formula in the hopes of producing a harder and more durable surface. I would like to get an idea of months that produced the most satisfactory ones from our perspective. I have a several from one set of Specials...the records they gave the customer with a conversion kit...which were a revelation to me. They sound very nice indeed with very quiet surfaces. Proving that when they were new the records were pretty good: not durable, but at least quiet.

[edisonphonoworks]

From 1901- 1903 Edison Gold Moulded records were made with the aluminum ceresin, stearic acid based "brown wax" and at first some lampblack and carnauba wax made the flat end moulded records harder than cut brown wax. In 1904 ebonite, copper and zinc stearates were added, and pine tar, making them a little more durable. These were made in dipping moulding machines, where the moulds were dipped in the compound at 290 F, for two minutes. The total time was 15 minutes per record to produce. then reamed while in the mold with a hand reamer, or a lathe reamer, and then put on an extracting machine where gravity let the cylinders shrink out of the molds, and then records were left on tapered cores for two hours to contract evenly, and then the cores pressed out with a hand press. Sometime in late 1907 a new kind of formulation was developed, that I do not think anyone knows exactly what it is, I have read a supposed lead stearate based formula, and another that mixes stearic acid and shellac, I don't think any of us experts know exactly what it was. I might try to make the shellac stearic compound and see how it works, but have no reason to make it if it makes self destructive cylinders, what would be the point?. The compound was kept in square melting kettles with gas burners below with a thermometer hung in them, The molds pre heated to 180 F in a steam heater with holes for the molds, and the molds dropped down two chutes by young men. (12-18 years old), and before you yell Child labor, put your old timey heads on instead of the modern brain washed, ones! If you were a young person and had an opportunity to work for Thomas Edison in his record plant, I know I would be there with bells on and it would be exciting!). The records then went into a machine that charged each bell shaped mould with the right amount of compound and the molds went on 3 revolving rollers, at about 1,500-1,800 rpm until the wax was hard enough to retain its shape at the end of the machine, which was slanted down on an angle. When the molds came out at the other end, they were put on a lathe that made the ribs inside. The records next went into water cooled cages where the wax cooled enough to drop out of the mold at about 130 degrees or so, and then put on warmed metal mandrels for two hours to contract, again to keep them from warping. The records that self destruct, the 10,000 series Gold Moulded and the wax Amberols are spun moulded records. The account from a 1912 article in American Machinist of 1912. Available on Google Books. Also an article by Ron D In the Groove.

[FloridaClay]

Thanks Shawn. Very informative.

Clay