Needles?

[Inigo]

They were prescribed for certain celluloid records, I don't remember what brand put it on the labels...

[Orchorsol]

Trailer needles were used for playing acetates (direct-cut lacquer-coated discs).

[Lah Ca]

Pictures, please!

There is a modern needle which I noticed in a video on an HMV portable by a guy in the UK with the handle Techmoan. The needle is similar in appearance to the old ones I found in my cabinet recesses. The striations, visible on the new needle where it tapers towards the tip, are much more deeply pronounced on the old needles and are also visible all along the shaft. The new and old needles are very similar in colour. The new needles are OCDC brand, made in the UK.

The video, here below set to start at the point where the needles are introduced, is a lot of fun, worth watching from the beginning for anyone new to talking machines. However, it probably won't tell you anything you don't already know.

https://youtu.be/AYn7aZZBMRA?t=791

Attached: an enlarged area screenshot of one of the new loud tone needles.

[Lah Ca]

@CarlosV
@Inigo
@Orchorsol

Thank you for the kind explanations about trailer needles.

[Inigo]

At that simple view, the points don't seem very good. Member soundgen in this forum (UK) sells very good steel needles. You should try them... They're fine, very well made.

[Lah Ca]

At that simple view, the points don't seem very good. Member soundgen in this forum (UK) sells very good steel needles. You should try them... They're fine, very well made.

Yes. I have been recommended to do this many times and will probably do so when I next purchase needles.

My point in posting the picture was not an endorsement of the new needles (which in fact I know nothing about) but rather an attempt to illustrate what the old ones discussed way above look like. They sort of look like the one in the screenshot but more striated and with better tips - not much evidence of tumble polishing and no plating. I had been asked to provide pics. I am not equipped to do so at a level of magnification and depth of field that would show anything interesting -- hence the screenshot of the new needle.

[Marco Gilardetti]

Thanks for the picture, but I agree with inigo that the pictured needles are absolutely nothing special: just poorly re-tempered steel in my humble opinion.

[Lah Ca]

Hmmm ... I was doing a cull of a new bag of soft tone needles, and I may have discovered a heretofore undocumented needle type, the soft tone rasp/club/mini-baseball-bat needle.

Can anyone tell me what purpose this design of needle it put to? The tip of the needle in the photo points downward to the left.

[gramophoneshane]

I've never seen anything like it, and don't see how it could possibly work.
I'd say it's either not a gramophone needle at all, or it could be a needle somehow misformed during the manufacturing process.

[Lah Ca]

I've never seen anything like it, and don't see how it could possibly work.
I'd say it's either not a gramophone needle at all, or it could be a needle somehow misformed during the manufacturing process.

You are 100% correct. It cannot possibly work. It is a soft tone needle. It was misformed during the manufacturing process.

I am having to cull defective needles from a batch that I bought some time ago. This baseball-bat-rasp needle came from a bag of plated soft tone needles in which 45% of the needles had malformed tips. The one in the pic above is the most extreme example.

I am given to irony by nature, but I must remember that irony does not work well in text, because there is no tone of voice or facial expression to cue interpretation. I am sorry, and I apologise.