Question about blank cylinders for original studio use.

[Phototone]

Did the wax cylinder blanks used by the recording studios (Edison, Columbia, others) consist of a softer formula than the blanks sold for home recording? I ask because a blank recorded for plating and duplication wouldn't have to be hard enough to withstand playback, and the molded wax and celluloid cylinders are generally louder, clearer and wider range than home recorded ones.

[edisonphonoworks]

Mr. Gordon, I know I am the last person you want to hear an answer for your question . I have two similar formulas for disc master wax, one for vocalion (British and Australian) and it is a Montan wax and lead stearate formula, and in George Frow, Diamond Disc book it also lists a similar formula of lead stearate and montan wax, for some Diamond Disc 1" thick disc masters. Charley Hummel showed me this weekend at Union an original memo for Diamond Disc masters that says "White Wax Master" purchase order, this is probably the F.T. oil formula, and I still do not know what F.T oil is. Mother or sub master records, during the Gold Moulded era were an aluminum stearate, ceresin,purified #3 Sierra carnauba formula with no lampblack. I saw a Columbia direct cut master for panto graphing purposes, and it was a yellow wax with number written on it. (see below) played on the CPS machine, It sounded quite good, even though it was used for copying many cylinders at Columbia.) I offer my laboratory, with proper enumeration which contains cylinder making equipment of various melters, electric, and white gas, various crucibles of aluminum, copper, and cast iron. Materials like stearic acid, ceresin, paraffin, beeswax. I have glass ware and equipment for creating hydrated alumina. Also 3 wax cylinder blank molds. Do not forget shavers, and a studio recording machine. If you want to find answers they are located at my facility. It is available for research to any serious experimentalist, and my expertise. Also Chuck Richards website
http://www.richardslaboratories.com/ind ... contact-us. It has most information needed to make a good recording wax. What you do need to know is the percents in old formulas are not going to work with modern incarnations of those ingredients, so any formula you find will have to be adjusted for modern materials, this takes weeks, months and years to do. Also much of the combination process is left out of most of the old information. You can't mold cylinders of good quality form formula wax, just finished, it must be conditioned properly by annealing, to make really good wax. So any formula you find, is not going to work by making it, and pouring it in a mold. It may be ok, but not for fine work. Also home recording equipment was never meant to rival professional recording machines (in the era of moulded records.) Early home recording equipment of the 1890's was not too different than the studio.) However during the moulded era, starting about 1903 Advance ball, diaphragm and gasket choices were different than home recorders. If a burnt rubber or other material was used for the viscous dampening, it was usually good for a few records, until it changed properties and had to be renewed, often this is what stuck it all together. It is a reason why not many complete (with the original materials) studio recorders exists, the diaphragm and dampening material did not last long.

[edisonphonoworks]

I hope this post helped some.

[Menophanes]

Special thanks to edisonphonoworks for the image of the Edison professional recording machine; I have long desired to get a sight of one of these but could not find it on the Edison National Heritage website or anywhere else. (For some reason I did not spot this posting until today.) It is interesting that even at this relatively sophisticated level the case is that of an ordinary Model A Triumph. Is that a microscope sticking up above the carrier-arm?

Seeing the large flywheel on the end of the mandrel shaft, I am more than ever astonished that, apart from some early tinfoil phonographs, no significant manufacturer ever made a serious attempt to incorporate this stabilising device in a commercial cylinder machine. (I know that some Edison machines of 1909–14 included flywheels, but they were not very big, and the fact that they were dropped from 1915 onwards shows that the idea was not considered as important.) I believe that if this had been consistently done the whole history of sound recording, at least up to the introduction of the vinyl LP, would have been totally different.

Oliver Mundy.

[edisonphonoworks]

Gerald Fabris also wrote an article in the June, 2011 "In The Groove" on the studio recorders, it does not go into any technical detail of how they work, just the machines at Edison Historical park, when they were cataloged, and some variations of them. If I remember there is 4 acoustical recording machines; this one, another one with a brass cover over the feedscrew area, one in a broken case, not complete, and a doll recorder. Also a triumph with a flywheel that was used for playback purposes (although recording parts were found in the case.) The article also shows the machine that cut the 5600 series Blue Amberol masters, It is a high end, Amberola 1-A or B style mechanism with the horn stanchion removed, and a microscope stage put in it's place.(it also has a microscope as well) The electric driver is made from a cone speaker with horse shoe magnet, the center armature hooked to the cutting stylus instead of a speaker cone, it has an advance ball, like the acoustical recorder. The recorder assembly it can be raised and lowered with the focus adjustment of the microscope rack and pinion, the back of the recorder has brass, cylindrical bushings permitting it to rise and fall with any blank eccentricities. The machine also has a swarf blowing/ suction tube with thin,brass sheet deflector. This Amberola mechanism is set in a Triumph case like the machine above, right side of the case has a cutout so you can lift the mechanism out of the case. The Edison studio machine in the photo above may also bee seen in more detail, of the carriage and recorder on page 108 of photos 3-46 and 3-47 (This plate shows the recording heads, the casting, advance ball adjuster. These recorders would of had the cutting stylus floating with tiny wire stretched on either side and the photos show the recorders are devoid of diaphragms or cutting stile.) The book that shows the recorders is "Discovering Antique Phonographs 1877-1929" by Tim Fabrizio and George F. Paul.

[rgordon939]

Just curious about PHOTOTONE, is his name Mr. Gordon also?

Rich Gordon

[Phototone]

Just curious about PHOTOTONE, is his name Mr. Gordon also?

Rich Gordon

No, my name is Mr. McCluney.

Also in the discussion about flywheels above. Disc machines didn't seem to need flywheels on the playback commercial machines, because the turntable itself acts as a flywheel, and on the cutting lathe, the very very heavy turntable that the master wax was cut on acted as a flywheel. Unlike cylinder machines where the mandrel is very light and offers no flywheel smoothing. However, even the cheapest Amberola had a spring-loaded mandrel which helped to smooth things out a bit.