Speaking of Brown Wax...

[Starkton]

Thanks Norman! The chances of making them the right formula, actually was pure luck There was a 300 to 1 chance of making the right formula, and I used what I knew about the properties of the surviving cylinders to "Pick" the right formula out of the myriad of experiments in the notebook of Jonas Aylsworth. The experiments began on January 1st 1887 and the regular brown wax came to fruition about experiment 1029 and 1058[. The early experiments though were in the 300s.

Did you repeat Aylsworth's experiment #1052 of 13 June 1889 to produce "veneer" cylinders? These must be string core cylinders with thin walls Wangemann used in Europe until late August/early September 1889.



If you want to read more here are the sources:

Edison's laboratory notebook no. 564 with Aylsworth's experiments beginning with #1 of 1 January 1887: http://tinyurl.com/cenvcrm and the continuation with experiment #831 of 23 August 1888: http://tinyurl.com/cfbo2gt

[edisonphonoworks]

I had read the court cases that had warned against the problems with dry acetate of aluminum and olates these two ingredients=trouble!!!! Hence the bubble effect on the string core cylinders. I had a batch, in my early experiments I had made by boiling lead in caustic soda (should have been lead oxide, but) so what I made was a sodium stearate mass, and no tempering agent these would be fine for about two weeks and badly cloud and were attacked by moisture. I had then made some aluminum stearate mass but with no tempering agent, and these were indeed hard to record, and became foggy and oily this was with double pressed stearic, and with triple was too hard to do anything with. Anyway in the papers from a court case between Edison and Columbia over formulations, and molding techniques, part of the story of the development of the records is discussed, and the troubled formula talked about that was used from late 1888-1889.

[edisonphonoworks]

Starkton, good notebooks,, they are invaluable for making blanks. I had saved both wax experiment notebooks on CDR many years ago, and published some experiments in an article "In the Groove" With a couple of physical results of the formulas in the form of finished cylinder blanks. The funny thing Is I used to be able to make a formula similar to the Columbia Melzer formula that was bright white, even though it was an aluminum soap, I have not had luck getting them this color in recent years.

[Starkton]

Starkton, good notebooks,, they are invaluable for making blanks. I had saved both wax experiment notebooks on CDR many years ago, and published some experiments in an article "In the Groove" .

I never intended to cook myself, but since the year 2000 I went through innumerable laboratory notes and judicial files to track down historical indications like the reference to Wangemann in experiment #1052.

[edisonphonoworks]

I still might try to make that formula just to see what it does. Usually Acetate of Alumina has to be dissolved in water and sodium hydroxide to work , dry acetate of alumina causes decomposition. Notice the high temperature stated, not to exceed 500 degrees, but I am sure it is cooked within a few degrees of 500 for a very long time, as it would half to to drive off the acetic acid, so the wax has to be cooked until it no longer has a sour smell in the air, but is more of a burn acrid smell.

[edisonphonoworks]

I remember one of the first useful formulations, I used for about 25 blanks in 2000,, It came out a nice tan color, and was fairly hard. I had used Ben Franklin Stearin for candle making, 100 parts, and aluminum was dissolved in water with Red Devil Lye added (The same brand Edison used., and the best available that I had ever used, and no longer available) as meth labs,, shut down productions, leave it to the legal system to destroy another American institution, I know they had been in business since at least 1888!) It had then 10 parts beeswax, and 10 parts Gulf brand paraffin. I used most of these for my own experiments, and I had brought a few to Union, and one I know from that first batch went into the Charles Hummel collection. The next good formula was the aluminum stearate and gulf paraffin cylinders that I sold until 2001. I measured this on an old kitchen spring scale, so the formula was more by volume than weight, so those batches varied quite a bit in content, and had lots of aluminum in them, from .6 to around 1.5%! but they had 20% paraffin, so they still cut with nice curly swar,f and this was the method of test I used on each batch, by how well it cut, I remember these smelled like Crayola Crayons, and I made them at no more than 300 degrees F. . .