Stuck Amberol Cylinder

[ODIE3]

Oh that's to bad!

On the up side, your post got me thinking of my "High School Cadets". Then I found this Cylinder Record Reamer. That got me thinking about my donor Eagle's mandrel. I slapped some 600 grit sandpaper around it and gave it a go on "High School Cadets".

I am happy to say, success! So the loss of your Uncle Josh, in a way, brought back my "High School Cadets"!

[AmberolaAndy]

I can see that this dead horse has a penchant for being beaten, and so alas, it is my sad duty to inform you that Uncle Josh has gone to the Great Beyond, Valhalla, or wherever Chuckling Hillbillies go to perform their penance.

Josh was so swollen that the cylinder has split vertically along the left seam, and plaster was vomiting out like a pregnant Twinkie. I tried everything that I could think of and that you could think of. Uncle Josh wasn't going anywhere. I imagine that he had been living on the mandrel for a very long time, and to make matters worse, the machine is a 2-minute only Edison Suitcase model with an automatic reproducer. Yea, someone had been playing a blue Amberol cylinder on this early machine, probably over and over again, and God knows how many times they had listened to Uncle Josh speak even more slowly than was absolutely necessary, as the automatic reproducer screamed in pain.

And so I did it. I got out my utility knife and operated on Uncle Josh. Mission accomplished. In my defense I'll say that at least I didn't murder Enrico Caruso, or Sousa, or Annette Hanshaw. I sent Uncle Josh to the Great Chicken Coop in the Sky.

Sorry about that.

Guess you can say: “He was old but he was awfully tough!”

[AudioFeline]

I would take a similar approach to PeterF's post to tap it out, but not use a popsicle stick. I would get a piece of ply or mdf, about 1cm or ¼" thick (thickness is not critical, it needs to be rigid and flat). I would then get a hole saw and cut a hole the diameter of the mandrel at the thick end point the cylinder is stuck. The hole doesn't need to be exact, it can be a mm bigger, but not smaller.

Once the hole is cut in the wood, cut the wood through the diameter of the hole cut. The resultant two pieces of wood will have a half-circle of wood cut from one edge. Take one of the pieces of wood and place it on the mandrel against the amberol. Gently tap against the wood, rotating the cylinder every tap (eg. ¼ a revolution). The advantage of this approach is the force is distributed over half the diameter of the amberol, which will reduce risk of damaging, compared to the force of the tapping being on a smaller portion of the amberol.