The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Kirk,
If you want to try repairing them, use WeldBond glue to piece them back together, it works great on shellac records and Donnie on the forum used it to repair a black wax cylinder with great success. It's water soluble glue, so be sure to clean any excess from the grooves with a damp paper towel, before it sets up. After gluing them, you can cut small lengths of paper clips, heat them and press them into the wax bridging any major cracks. You can also use a soldering iron on the inside of the cylinders to "weld" the cracks by melting the wax and re-connecting each side of the crack back together. Since you have a lot of cylinders to work with, a little experimentation won't hurt anything... I used this method on an expensive black wax cylinder with great results, until I dropped it and destroyed it...

Good luck.

Even when you do glue or weld together a cracked wax cylinder, each play will widen that crack a bit further. The wax is so brittle that the round stylus still chips away at the edges of the crack. I don't know how you could apply a filler without smearing it into nearby grooves. After repairing a cylinder, play it once to make an archive recording and leave it at that. However, most common titles have already been posted online, thankfully.

marcapra wrote:I don't know what cylinder machines you have, but just to clarify in case you don't. I know you own an Amberola III. You cannot play 2 min. cylinders on that machine because, like the Opera, it is a 4 min. machine only. It will play 4 min. wax Amberols with an L reproducer, and 4 min. Blue Amberols and 4 min. Columbia Indestructibles with the Diamond A reproducer. But I'm sure you know that and may have other machines that do play 2 min. wax records.

I actually do not have a 2 minute player but have an ad in the wanteds for one right now..


I finished going through them...
Of 131 cylinders I have 108 survivors. There are a few that I think I can work with. It is either a hairline or a very clean break.
I will try mending them as you guys recommended.
I made a list of all the survivors and will post it when I get to typing out 1000 numbers,