Thoughts on shaving moldy brown wax cylinders

[Edisonfan]

I have watched two separate videos on this subject. One person said it was okay to shave them, the other said not!
I was curious as too what fellow collectors thought? Because, one says the mold has already destroyed the recording, where someone else says: We are losing history, and it would be possible to save the recording using technology.

I know there are a couple of people who make new blank cylinder records, from scratch! Mind you the process is laborious, and expensive! $50.00 just for one blank record.

[Wolfe]

If it's a unique recording, say, a home recording from the 1890's or something, I say no. If it's one of these newfangled things like this heavy metal stuff that the kids are into now, I say shave it.

[rgordon939]

If the cylinder is playable it should not be shaved. If the cylinder is completely covered in mold and unplayable then I say shave it. It is of no historical value if you can’t play it. There are thousands and thousands of brown wax cylinders in collections around the world.

Rich Gordon

[recordmaker]

A totally mouldy cylinder will take quite a lot of shaving off to get to a good surface and also watch out for cracks as they can shatter in the process of shaving.

If you want to experiment with recording more then once or twice then Paul Morris does make blanks for a lot less than $50 each ( about $15 )
[url]http://www.paulmorrismusic.co.uk/

On the question in hand I suspect that once the mould has done its work on a wax cylinder with near 100% mould cover much of the music has probably gone beyond technical recovery. (having become lunch for the mould)

If there is a chance that the record is of something significant or even a very early style of cylinder (e.g. North American channel rim) then leaving the artefact as found would be preferred,especially, as pointed out above there is a source of new blanks.

[donniej]

I've recently discussed this issue with two individuals who have very large collections of brown wax cylinders, along with advanced equipment for playback and microscopes for viewing the damage. The collectors had come to the conclusion that what is often considered to be mold is in fact some sort of chemical reaction between the cylinders and something present in the environment. While mold definitely does attack wax cylinders, it appears that this is more often a chemical reaction and not a biological one. Since I've spent considerable time studying fats and oils, this seemed like a good topic for me to take a look into.

It's my opinion that the spotty, lighter colored spots which are present at or near where the cylinder makes contact to air, appearing is a consistent pattern and density around that perimeter, are a chemical reaction with products present in air causing a break between the fatty acid's carbon chain and the functional group at the head of the molecule.

Can this be repaired? I don't know. If you look at the cylinder under magnification and see that the grooves are gone, then no, it cannot be restored with current technology. However, if the grooves are still there, it may be possible to reverse the degradation or "wash it off". Experiments for this are ongoing.

As for molds effect on cylinders, I have no idea. Of the ~100 cylinders I've examined, I don't believe any of them were mold, they all appeared to be a chemical reaction. This is an assumption of mine and I have no data at present to back it up. I'll surely be writing more about this after the ARSC conference in May.

As to whether or not to shave them, I'm the last person to tell people what to do with their property. If there is a demand for more advanced technologies to extract audio from damaged cylinders then it will be developed, either by optics, density, x-ray, who knows. So hopefully the really unique cylinders will be spared, the market will encourage development of more sensitive playback equipment and everyone will live happily ever after

[Edisonfan]

I’m sure a lot of brown wax cylinder records, were man handled. Let’s face it, not everyone was careful handling cylinder records. So, I’m sure a lot of oils from peoples hands got on the cylinder, and mainly on the recording side, not inside.

[Edisonfan]

A totally mouldy cylinder will take quite a lot of shaving off to get to a good surface and also watch out for cracks as they can shatter in the process of shaving.

If you want to experiment with recording more then once or twice then Paul Morris does make blanks for a lot less than $50 each ( about $15 )
[url]http://www.paulmorrismusic.co.uk/

On the question in hand I suspect that once the mould has done its work on a wax cylinder with near 100% mould cover much of the music has probably gone beyond technical recovery. (having become lunch for the mould)

If there is a chance that the record is of something significant or even a very early style of cylinder (e.g. North American channel rim) then leaving the artefact as found would be preferred,especially, as pointed out above there is a source of new blanks.

Well that’s nice, but since I live in the US, I have too account for shipping being higher. Also, the last item i bought from overseas. The Netherlands to exact. It took a month, to get here.

[rgordon939]

I will probably have a couple dozen shaved brown wax cylinders for sale at the upcoming Wayne NJ Show.

Rich Gordon

[Edisonfan]

Thank you Rich, but I don’t know, when I will be going back again? It’s a four hour drive for me from Frederick Maryland, to Wayne NJ. I wish a phonograph show like this was closer? Sigh!

Also, I don’t have a recorder for my Edison machine.

Paul

[travisgreyfox]

Also I wanted to add: What if future technology lets us reverse the "mold" on these records? It would be a shame to record over or chuck them if someday we can repair and play what's on them.

Seen this in the news today and made me think about this thread. High-energy X-rays + machine learning may allow ancient scrolls on Epicureanism, crushed in the Vesuvius eruption, to be read 1,940 years later.

http://www.msn.com/en-xl/europe/europe- ... ar-AAIcYjY