cylinder shaver

[flashpanblue]

Hi Guys,
I stand corrrected, Benjamin( The Victrola Guy)has done some recordings on Shaved two minute Edison cylinders, but that is not what he uses for the majority of his recordings. Last week I received an email from Benjamin on this subject and I quote from that email " I am selling original black wax Edison Recording Blanks. I have hundreds in stock,they make beter recordings than any blank currently available and they are original Edisons. They are Edison Dictation cylinders that I trim and shave for use on the Phonograph. 99% of the recordings on my You Tube channel are on these Black wax blanks They are $20.00 and fully guaranteed, they make excellant recordings."
Pete

[debndunk]

Hi Shane, After seeing what he had done I made an electric pick up of sorts using a small powered mic glued to a tube fitted to the reproducer, then plugged it into a small amp and it worked great.Now surely if I put an ear piece from a set of headphones on to the recorder from the amp that will give enough volume to cut a black wax cylinder? Gordon

[edisonphonoworks]

I have used Gold Moulded records when I was just learning how to record, I used lamp oil and a cloth to soften the wax, then shaved it, the lamp oil keeps the surface soft for about an hour, I also used a heat lamp on the phonograph. I got some great recordings, that were very loud and deep. I though do not recommend doing this often, Gold moulded records have chemicals that make them hard on your cutting stylus, they have Zinc, copper, Carnauba, and pine tar, these are why they wear a long time. Below is my own version of a four minute black blank made from raw materials I also do not suggest recording much on these as I do not recommend recording on original orange box black wax, as they are the same formula. At least my blanks are made from raw materials and not cut down records, or such. I will also say that I have recorded quite a bit on Ediphone blanks, and they do a great job, of recording, but they were never meant for long term preservation. I have recordings I made a year ago on them and they are already hazed. In some parts of the country like California, Texas, Arizona, you will not notice a problem with efflorescence you have no humidity which causes the problem which here in Illinois however, we have very humid summers, and any defects in cylinder wax show up in the summer months within two weeks and will have efflorescence. Paraffin, and stearine pitch ( A fancy term for un-pressed stearic acid, this conains glycerin and olaic acid) are in Ediphone wax the cause efflorescence. Dictaphone brand blanks although it is not known there exact formulation, from the properties I have observed they most likely are a lead based wax I would like to be proven wrong on this. Ediphone blanks are aluminum based and not toxic. Peter Dilg accounted recording on 12 original four minute Edison blanks and the quality from the first to the 12th were a progression of great to poor, the first recording was good, the last one was faint and the cut shallow. When those making master four minute records for molded records, actually use a regular brown wax formulatlion to make masters, or a red litharge/montan formula, not a black wax one. There is only one person on this list who has enough authorized knowledge to back me up on this information, Chuck will you chime in?

[gramophoneshane]

Yes, kerosene, mineral turpentine & gasolene all soften the surface of brown & black wax cylinders. I used turpentine when I did my "100 yr old Kylie" recording on youtube, which came out really well, but I've found the wax swarf tends to stick to the rotating cylinder & can clog up the recording stylus, causing it to stop cutting as well until the build-up clears so the cutter can continue cutting properly.
It didn't happen to me all the time, but probably ⅓ recordings would act like this.
Another thing I didn't like about using a solvent was that you'd have to wait an hour or two before you could play back the recording to check it, otherwise the wax was still soft and you'd be damaging the recording the first time you played it.

[gramophoneshane]

Hi Shane, After seeing what he had done I made an electric pick up of sorts using a small powered mic glued to a tube fitted to the reproducer, then plugged it into a small amp and it worked great.Now surely if I put an ear piece from a set of headphones on to the recorder from the amp that will give enough volume to cut a black wax cylinder? Gordon

It may work, and infact I might try and make something similar myself, but listening to the video below, he mentions (at around 2min 15sec) that his devise isn't a speaker, and that the sound you can hear during the recording is the diaphragm moving.
So, if it's not some sort of tiny speaker, I'm really not sure what it is??
Im guessing a small speaker should work to a certain degree, but being more or less, a speaker sealed to the top of the recorder, there might be chance of feedback during a recording.
I suppose the only way to find out is to experiment.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdO0Q4tAw70[/youtube]

[debndunk]

Hi Shane, well like I said, I've made a pickup that works great through an amp, but the hard bit is making a recorder. he's using an amp to increase the volume of the transfer, but what is he using against the recorder? It must be a ear piece? Well if I'm wrong I bet he's having a good old laugh at me .Anyway good luck to him he's obviously worked hard . Gordon

[edisonphonoworks]

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Borri-Aud ... 9255149858

You will find among the photographs a photo of my hi-fi electrical wax cylinder recorder. I used this device from the mid 1990's before I made my own blanks, and use it sometimes to record with. I had made some cylinder records so wide in frequency response as to not be able to play back on an acoustic phonograph. I demonstrated records made on this machine at Union in 2000, they were played on the Archeophone at the booth of Kurt Nauck. I am sure those that witnessed this can comment on what they heard that day, I had demo cylinders of the Beatles, Ac/Dc,Led Zepplin. I think I might bring this device out and make some demo cylinders with it.

[debndunk]

Hi Shawn, Wow thats way over my head .What I threw together was very low tech, but it plays the cylinders louder and clearer than a horn and cost me 10 quid (aprox $17.00). I've just got to find a way to increase the volume to the recorder in a similar way to get a good clear recording. I'm not a member of facebook so unfrotunately could not see what you have achieved, but if you do any more with your recording device I would love to see the end product. Gordon

[edisonphonoworks]

Hmm a good dubbing horn and recording method I used and works. An alternate way of making a good recording without and electrical cutter.
Find yourself and old boom box that does not work, but the speakers are good, or some other full range speaker, (A goodwill, or similar store) about 4 or 5" in diamiter and take the speaker out of it. Make a cardboard cone horn, by at first gluing 2 pieces of poster board together and then make a 30" long cone horn and the opening wide enough that the speaker goes inside with about 3" of space behind it, and when the horn is good and dry, hot glue the speaker inside the horn, the speaker pointing down to the recorder, then cut a stiff piece of cardboard such as the round store kind pizza cardboard to fit the opening of the horn, put some foam or insulatiion behind the speaker, and then glue the pizza box round in the end of the horn, you now have a horn to force the sound without interferance down to your recorder, it should not take much power to get some very loud recordings. To get commercial loudness, and deep grooves and no blast, use a washer that is small enough to fit ontop of the diaphragm holder in the edison recorder, without touching the sides so it goes up and down smoothly, then take a dremel tool and stone bit, and hone out the inside of the washer so it fits over where the connector for the tube plat is, you want it tight enoguh to hug the tube plate bottom piece, but not interfere with the motion of the nozzle and tube it wont blast and you will have super loud, clear recordings.

[edisonphonoworks]

This is my electrical recorder, you can read about it on the Phono Makers page. http://www.christerhamp.se/phono/borri.html

Notice this was posted back in 2003, and I had used the device as early as 1995.