Advice about Cylinder Phonographs

[winsleydale]

Hmm... Interesting that the cylinder speed affects fidelity like that.

As it happens, I have been skulking around the Borri Audio Labs webpage and youtube channel. Of course, the first time I found it, it meant little as I was not yet on the forum. I guess he makes 4 minute blanks as well, now? Or maybe it was just a one-off experiment... Anyhow, it was a cool video.

Regarding the Gem, I think the Victrola Guy has one weirdly enough specifically for the use of field recording... But I think he lucked out and ended up with a strong enough machine to fully plsay through two cylinders. Pretty wild for a Gem, from what I have read!
So, a Home or a Triumph. I'll talk to Jerry. Thanks, everybody.

[De Soto Frank]

The four-minute cylinder has grooves that are twice as small as with a 2-minute cylinder... MUCH more delicate apparatus and much less forgiving in the field.

I think the folks making two & four-minute cylinders for "mass" market sales do so in "ideal" controlled studio / laboratory conditions.


I think Shawn's recording workhorse has a box enclosure with a 100-watt bulb inside, to keep the mandrel / blank at a happy 80* F ( or whatever that exact temperature that is )...

Early-style recording is as much a "dark-art" as it is an "exact science" ...

[winsleydale]

Yeah, I think I read that on his website, too. Temperature is apparently very important. I guess that makes sense, because it would be easier for the cutter to perform accurate movements in wax that has been slightly softened by heat, right?

[JerryVan]

"I guess he makes 4 minute blanks as well, now?"

There's no such thing as a 4 minute blank or a 2 minute blank. It's just a blank. It only becomes 2 min. or 4 min. if you record in a 2 min. or a 4 min. format.

[winsleydale]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XE1KHdnbjaM

[Chuck]

4 minute recording on wax cylinders is only beneficial
for use in the process of making moulded records.

This is because the 4 minute grooves are so delicate
they cannot stand to be played back directly from the
master very many times.

This is not to say that recording and playing 4 minute
cylinders will not nor cannot work at all. Indeed it does work. Edison sold 4 minute blanks and recorders.

But the blanks do not wear well nor do the cutters.
It's a very slippery slope because the 4M wax blanks
need to be a bit harder in order to have much chance at all of even having a reasonable amount of playbacks.

Being of a harder composition the 4M blanks also tend to
wear the cutter more. This is also exacerbated by
the fact that the cutter is so much smaller than a
2 minute cutter. In short then, the bottom line is that
for recording and direct playback, the 4 minute
format is ill-suited to the task, in my humble opinion.

This is why I state openly that my blanks are designed
and tested to be 2 minute blanks because they are
especially made to be of the correct hardness to
get the best performance from a properly adjusted
2 minute recorder, and a properly working 2 minute
reproducer.

Sure, anyone could use them to record in the 4 minute
format, but they would not work very well for that
because they are not designed for it.

Many of these sorts of details are fully explained
on my website.

Chuck

[winsleydale]

I'll check it out.

[JerryVan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XE1KHdnbjaM

I stand corrected. Thanks for the info.

[winsleydale]

4 minute recording on wax cylinders is only beneficial
for use in the process of making moulded records.
Chuck

How does one do that?

[Chuck]

Well the old way that Edison did it when he made
the "Gold Moulded" black wax 2 minute records, and then
later the "Amberol" series of black wax 4 minute records
and later still when he made the celluloid "Blue Amberol"
series went something like this:

First, the master recording is made on a very soft
and sensitive wax made with stearate of lead. These
blanks were never meant to be played more than maybe once
or twice using a special lightweight reproducer to check
to make sure they were ok for molding.

The master was then coated with graphite and put into
a bell jar which was pulled down to a high vacuum.
Inside the bell jar were connections to a high voltage
coming from outside of the jar. One terminal was connected to a sheet of gold foil and the graphite coated
master cylinder was the other terminal. The cylinder
was made to rotate slowly.

The gold then migrated across the vacuum and deposited a very thin molecular layer of gold over the graphite.

When there was enough gold, the process was stopped and
the cylinder removed. From there it went into a copper
plating bath where a thick layer of copper was built
up over the gold.

The master wax was then melted out, leaving the negative
impressions of the grooves. Next, the copper was put into a steel sleeve to make it stronger. This then
became the mold used to cast many copies.

That is a very over-simplified version of it.
There are many other things they did such as allowing
for shrinkage and having a very slightly different
thread count on the grooves to make up for shrinkage
of the final product so that the final records end up
at a true 100 TPI or 200 TPI.

Today, such gentlemen as Rob Lomas and Duncan Miller
do it differently using a whole different molding
method and then they cast their cylinder record copies
using an epoxy resin.

How does one do that?

Jump in, the water is fine!

Start your experiments now, and in about 5 years
you *might* have your first playable cylinder.
10 years would be more realistic.

Chuck