Help With An Edison Blue Amberol Cylinder : (

[FellowCollector]

Yesterday I received a package shipped by USPS of a few Edison Blue Amberol cylinders that I had purchased. The transaction was not on eBay or any other popular online trading venue - just a person who was a friend of a friend that knows I'm interested in early phonographs and so forth. All I was provided were the cylinder numbers appearing on the rim which the person read to me over the phone and I jotted them down on a paper.

One of the numbers was 5226. After I got off the phone, my curiosity was piqued and so I looked up that cylinder in one of my books. It turned out to be "Black Bottom" by Harold Stern and His Orchestra which is a cylinder I've been searching a long time for. This was the ONE cylinder in the group that I really (I mean...REALLY) wanted and was hoping would be in nice playing condition.

I opened the package and began going through the few cylinders waiting and hoping. The first 2 or 3 cylinders I pulled out of their boxes looked pretty nice! Each one looked like someone used a wet (with dirty water!) dish cloth to wipe the cylinder surfaces but I could tell through that dried dirty appearance that the surfaces were nice.

Then I pulled out a ratty looking Blue Amberol cylinder box and slid my fingers inside the cylinder pulling it out about a half inch. I immediately noticed a split in the title rim. I said to myself "I sure hope this isn't Black Bottom because it's split...". I spun the rim around and to my horror saw "BOTTOM" in the title which was soiled and hard to read. OHHHHHH NOOOOOOOOO. That was the one I wanted.

I pulled it out and amazingly the split was tiny and stopped right on the rim. YES!! There may be hope after all. Then I pulled the entire cylinder out its box and...UGH!...noticed that the lead-in end of the cylinder had clearly sustained some trauma. There were a couple of tiny pieces of plaster missing and the lead-in end was obviously out-of-round.

The one cylinder I wanted in the entire group was the one cylinder that had sustained trauma.

I would be MOST grateful to anyone here who can offer some help to me so that I can play this cylinder. The surface itself is like NEW but the celluloid skin is no longer round on the lead-in end of the cylinder.

And if you know of anyone who has a decent copy of this cylinder (reproduction or original) to sell or trade please let me know as I would be interested. I checked the Vulcan cylinder site and theirs is out of stock.

Thanks ever so much, in advance, for any ideas that might help get the celluloid on this cylinder back into a close to round (playable) shape again. Or if you have a copy of this cylinder to sell or trade. The plaster core I have reamed a little to fit on a mandrel but it's the celluloid that needs to be round again. Otherwise the reproducer weight will bounce like crazy.

Thanks,
Doug

[soundgen]

All Blue Amberols are on a path to destruction , they are as you said made of celluloid which is nitrocellulose plasticised with camphor , now camphor is a solid BUT it has a vapour pressure , ie it goes from a solid to a vapour directly without having to liquefy , I am sure you may have smelt the camphor on a good cylinder sometimes or even as ping pong balls if you play or moth balls ,

So the camphor evaporates this leads to the cylinder surface contracting which will compress the center plaster hence the need for reaming . I am told that rim cracks can propagate suddenly across the whole record with a loud "ping" to stop this happening I have been told to drill a tiny hole into the cylinder at the crack end ,

The distortion of the record may be reversible , you could try putting some weight on the non round end on the large side to see if it returned to circular over a period of time

It may be that you could replasticise the cellulose with some camphor before doing this ? Camphor is readily available as the solid or as an oil , it also may be a good idea to put a small piece of camphor in any box with any Blue Amberol , this would increase the vapour content of the air in the box and may reduce the reduce the amount of camphor in the cylinder from evaporating thus prolonging the life of the cylinder so long as you don't object to the smell of camphor

[phonogfp]

I remember reading back in the 1970s (perhaps in the Journal of the California Antique Phonograph Collector's Society) that Blue Amberols like this could be saved. The recommendation was to remove the entire plaster core, then cut off the non-titled celluloid rim. Then a junk wax cylinder could be slid into the celluloid skin.

I never tried this, but just thought I'd pass it along.

George P.

[FellowCollector]

Thanks for the helpful input, George and soundgen! I'll give both of your suggestions a try. I'll try to put some weight on the non-title end and (maybe) apply some warm air from a hair dryer on that end with the weight on it to see if that end of the cylinder can return to round. If that doesn't work then I'll try George's suggestion and remove all of the plaster core, cut off the lip on the non-title end and insert a wax cylinder inside. It makes perfect sense. I think I'm going to try George's suggestion first on a Blue Amberol here that I have umpteen copies of as a test. Thanks again, ever so much, for both ideas!

Doug

[soundgen]

Thanks for the helpful input, George and soundgen! I'll give both of your suggestions a try. I'll try to put some weight on the non-title end and (maybe) apply some warm air from a hair dryer on that end with the weight on it to see if that end of the cylinder can return to round. If that doesn't work then I'll try George's suggestion and remove all of the plaster core, cut off the lip on the non-title end and insert a wax cylinder inside. It makes perfect sense. I think I'm going to try George's suggestion first on a Blue Amberol here that I have umpteen copies of as a test. Thanks again, ever so much, for both ideas!

Doug

Hot air dryer sounds like a really good idea !