The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I believe a few new materials have been developed since then. Maybe a few of them are worth testing?

Chuck wrote:Polymer, Schmolymer!

In my humble opinion you are wasting your time with that idea.

There is a reason that it took Jonas Aylesworth well over 1000 tests
and experiments to find the brown wax formula.

But hey, knock yourself out, if that's what you like to do.

I am just saying that I know what works, and what is highly likely
NOT to work.

I have wondered about producing a composite--a thermoset for the base with a thermoplastic, perhaps a latex compound, for the recording surface. The thermoset would mold up easily in simple molds. The recording surface may be a material that could be "erased" simply by reheating. I truly believe that a modern material may be quite suitable for this purpose ---just need to find that modern material.
John

The brown wax I made a while ago has a Shore "D" hardness of approximately 30. A plastic that's approximately this hardness, and having a low shear strength, would probably be a good start.

Ps. Making recording wax is pretty easy. You can just melt, mix and pour aluminum stearate, stearic acid and ceresin. It does however make a smoky mess.
Pps. I've made this formula and while it feels "about right", I've not yet had the chance to try it.

donniej wrote:The brown wax I made a while ago has a Shore "D" hardness of approximately 30. A plastic that's approximately this hardness, and having a low shear strength, would probably be a good start.

Ps. Making recording wax is pretty easy. You can just melt, mix and pour aluminum stearate, stearic acid and ceresin. It does however make a smoky mess.
Pps. I've made this formula and while it feels "about right", I've not yet had the chance to try it.

Have you read edisonphonoworks' posts and videos on wax manufacture? You're dealing with VERY high temperatures here. I wouldn't exactly call it "easy".

But if you really want to, go ahead.

Bill

Lucius1958 wrote:
Have you read edisonphonoworks' posts and videos on wax manufacture? You're dealing with VERY high temperatures here. I wouldn't exactly call it "easy".

But if you really want to, go ahead.

Bill

Yes, and if someone doesn't want to saponify their own soaps they can be purchased (the fore-mentioned aluminum stearate). The waxes and soap are then melted together and tempered at 450*F. Anyone who's gone this far, or is working with thermoset plastics, should be capable of not burning themself.
The approximate conversion from raw materials to the three basic ingredients is something like this...
Aluminum stearate - 8.5 parts
Stearic acid - 4.5 parts
Ceresin - 2 parts

I vaguely recall adding more ceresin, as the wax was a little too hard, but this is a good starting point. Just melt the stearates and add the ceresin. Heat to temper and mold. For the mold, I used an old mandrel and a piece of exhaust tubing.

You will not have much luck with moulding blanks with the Aluminum sodium stearate compound with a standard phonograph mandrel, It shrinks considerably It is not long enough to make a full size blank. the first mold I made at about 14 years old was a brass tube, a wood base and a phonograph mandrel, worked, but the blanks had to be reamed out and were thin, I used broken Gold moulded records, and added paraffin. You would have to ream it out, my current mold ID is 2.4" in, and my mandrel is 7" rough casting is 6 ½" long, to make 4-6" long blanks, I always fill the mold to the top. The mandrel's total diameter is over sized to compensate shrinkage. Also during the soap making stage to put in all of the hydrated aluminum solution the compound gets up to 270C before temper is added, it is then down to 232C to add temper. I learned a few new things in the last month that improved quality greatly. The method Chuck Richards developed is really the best method, and even better than original Edison blanks. I have just improved the S/N , clarity and overall quality greatly this summer. It is Ok though to make your own blanks, as with the boycott of my products by the Phonograph Community, I am actually having fun recording at fairs and educational demonstrations. So I thank you all for that . I will soon be putting my electrical recorder back into service which has a full range recording capability, for faithful dubbings or live recordings. I hope to also make some resin records too.

There is always lots of talk about ways to make better brown wax
or about different ways to make brown wax, or about using supposed
"better" or "modern" materials such as various types of plastics.

Typically these always seem to be mentioned by people who have
very obviously not ever produced even one single blank cylinder to test
by recording on it and then playing back that recording to hear what it sounds like.

All of this talk about the use of commercially available aluminum stearate
sounds a bit fishy to me.

If you say you've done it, then I'd very much like to see the video of it,
and then I'd like to also hear the results of the recordings you've made
using it. I'd like to see some pictures of your blanks.

Here's the thing: Experiments are always fun to talk about.
Lots of people have lots of ideas, and they are usually touted as
being somehow better or easier than established methods.

However, when the actual work starts, the data needs to be collected.
Then it needs to be analyzed. This is when the actual science starts.
So far all I am hearing is talk, talk, talk.

Results speak louder.

Shawn you need to make a cylinder titled
"Uncle Josh tries some Polymer"

Lol, I think we touched on a sore spot for someone. Rightfully so, you probably get a lot of this.

Here's the second cylinder I made. Unfortunately I don't have a recorder to test it with.
I do however have 15 years experience processing waxes, fatty acids and soaps

What the good point in your mold is the fact that it has a thick surface to shave, which also means it can be reamed out.
What is fishy, however to a person who has made thousands of blanks is the shrinkage rate. Below are records from my molds and the perspective molds they were made upon, showing the degree of shrinkage the metallic soap goes through. These mandrels, are not only over the length of a normal cylinder, they also are roughly 2% larger in diameter overall; Note the degree of shrinkage. I included what I could find of my original mold from about 1987, when I was 14 years old, I used on my Dictaphone, you can see it has not been used in a very long time.
At some point I put a metal washer on it, but when I first made it, the base was exactly as yours. It worked but the records had lots of holes in them, the shrinkage was horrendous. What I sense here actually is smugness from a person who may have more education than Chuck or I. We have figured the rudiments of these long ago, so others have to copy our work to show that they can do it too. It is OK, because I have had it with the collector community!! And making a list of persons of whom I will refuse to sell blanks to. And I may never sell blanks to anyone again, just finished recordings, mostly due to the attitude of person on this and other boards. However I will continue the research and continue to improve my product by leaps and bounds, propelled by competition, I like competition, it makes my product better, even if I don't want to sell it. Kind of like something in a glass case you want to reach and can't.

donniej wrote:Lol, I think we touched on a sore spot for someone. Rightfully so, you probably get a lot of this.

Here's the second cylinder I made. Unfortunately I don't have a recorder to test it with.
I do however have 15 years experience processing waxes, fatty acids and soaps

edisonphonoworks wrote:What the good point in your mold is the fact that it has a thick surface to shave, which also means it can be reamed out.
What is fishy, however to a person who has made thousands of blanks is the shrinkage rate. Below are records from my molds and the perspective molds they were made upon, showing the degree of shrinkage the metallic soap goes through. These mandrels, are not only over the length of a normal cylinder, they also are roughly 2% larger in diameter overall; Note the degree of shrinkage. I included what I could find of my original mold from about 1987, when I was 14 years old, I used on my Dictaphone, you can see it has not been used in a very long time.
At some point I put a metal washer on it, but when I first made it, the base was exactly as yours. It worked but the records had lots of holes in them, the shrinkage was horrendous. What I sense here actually is smugness from a person who may have more education than Chuck or I. We have figured the rudiments of these long ago, so others have to copy our work to show that they can do it too. It is OK, because I have had it with the collector community!! And making a list of persons of whom I will refuse to sell blanks to. And I may never sell blanks to anyone again, just finished recordings, mostly due to the attitude of person on this and other boards. However I will continue the research and continue to improve my product by leaps and bounds, propelled by competition, I like competition, it makes my product better, even if I don't want to sell it. Kind of like something in a glass case you want to reach and can't.

donniej wrote:Lol, I think we touched on a sore spot for someone. Rightfully so, you probably get a lot of this.

Here's the second cylinder I made. Unfortunately I don't have a recorder to test it with.
I do however have 15 years experience processing waxes, fatty acids and soaps

Just for the sake of argument... I don't think education has all that much to do with it. What works is what matters. I'm not dissing education by any means, but my observation is that education is a limiter as much as it is a useful tool; too many educated people are convinced of what won't work. It seems that our greatest discoveries often come from people "too stupid" to know that what they just invented is impossible.

Thinking outside the box because one doesn't know any better does indeed have its usefulness sometimes. Autism is another great freer of the mind... look at Einstein. There is consensus out there that he was, if not autistic, at least on the spectrum- and anyone who has read bios of Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw, to name two of the greats, could well conclude that they suffered from Aspergers or worse.