My Christmass Gifts to me any one else do this Pictures att

[edisonrestorer64]

I paid $212.00 on ebay but it really works out to about 106.00 per piece
I thought it was a fair price for both The seller gave me the other one it was like buy one get one free . THe Only thing I have to do is re wire the main plugs I hope.

[FloridaClay]

Unfortunately the polling system on the Forum hasn't worked for quite some time.

Clay

[Chuck]

Those are 2 very nice machines!

They both look in good shape and fairly well
unmolested.

My personal opinion of the price that you paid for them is that it may be just a tad high.
But not really too high.

To put this into perspective for you, here are
prices that I have paid for related machines
over the years:

Pristine barely used Dictaphone Model 7, Type S
shaver made in 1923, purchased in 1978 for
$75. This shaver is a real workhorse and
over the years it has proven to have been worth
every penny of that original (and somewhat high) $75.

Dirty, well-worn Dictaphone Cameo model
shaver, needed lots of TLC, works fine, came
with 25 NOS unused Dictaphone cylinders.
$25 on Craigslist, purchased in 2010. Had to
drive 400 miles round trip to pick it up, so
figure in fuel and time there.

A set of (3) Dictaphone machines found on
Tampa Craigslist last winter. Paid $100
for the set, drove 50 miles round trip to pick
up. This set is: Cameo Shaver, Cameo Transcriber, Model 12 Dictaphone. They were
dirty and all needed TLC, but all work fine.

Yet another Dictaphone shaver found on Madison,
Wisc. Craigslist last winter for $25.
This one is a model 10, which appears to
be a somewhat transitional model between
the old style Model 7, and the more modern
Cameos. This one was rusted almost beyond all hope, but a 72 hour marathon of complete disassembly and cleaning and reassembly has it working perfectly well. Shocking, actually.
At first glance I only ever thought it might
yield up a few good parts, at best.
It was so caked with wax shavings that the rust
did not get a chance to work down in and
freeze it up solid.

You did good, I think, because you found
genuine Edison machines! Not bad for Ebay.
Usually what generally pops up are Dictaphone
machines and they work fine, but Ediphone for
some reason is a bit rarer.

Chuck

[edisonrestorer64]

I am actually going to be buyying ot try to buy one like the one you have in the picture that you use chuck I think that is a much better one for me to use
Thanks for the input
sincerely Will S

[Chuck]

Hi Will,

My overall opinion of the many different varieties of shaver-cutter holders, and how they advance the cutter down toward the blank, is that the old style that the Dictaphone Model 7, Type S shaver has, works the best for me.

The cutter on that carriage arm is mounted on
a rod that advances toward the blank as a knurled wheel is turned. The wheel is about 1.25 inch diameter, a nice big wheel. The threads on this shaft are cut 40 threads to the inch, so for each turn of the wheel, the cutter moves 1/40th of an inch forward. 1/40th of an inch is .025 inch.

So, half a turn moves the cutter .0125 inch.
A quarter turn moves it .00625 inch.
An eighth of a turn moves it .003125.

An eighth of an turn is also 45 degrees, which
is pretty easy to eyeball as you are turning
the wheel. Neglecting the tiny .000125 part,
you can then round off and say that the
cutter moves about three thousandths of an inch (.003) for each 45 degrees of turn of the wheel.

This is on the radius, so if you take that cut
on a blank, the blank will end up being .006
smaller on the diameter.

That is about the deepest cut that can be taken
on a blank without making a rough surface from
tearing the wax.

Much finer cuts are easily made by turning the
wheel just a tiny bit at a time.

Compare that method with the much later various
"push and lock" schemes that both Ediphone
and Dictaphone shavers have.

Although it is possible to get accurate and
fine cuts using these later methods on these
later machines, it is always more work and
one must be very careful.

These later machines such as my model 10 and
my 2 Cameo models both have a neat system of
once the cutter is locked down there are
7 more fine "click stops" available for advancing the cutter down in increments of
.0005 (that's half a thousandth!) on the radius.

Each click therefore takes off one thousandth
on the diameter, and there are 7 clicks
for each setting of the "push-n-lock".

So, it is possible to make a pretty fair guess
with the "push-n-lock" thing, then gain real
accuracy for those 7 clicks.

But the 40 thread per inch wheel is still best.

If all you can have available is the "push-n'-lock", all is not lost because you can
get the hang of how to do perfectly accurate
and glassy-smooth shaves using it.

Right now I have the model 10 and the old
model 7 both available for shaving. The Cameos
are backups. In certain situations if you
want production speed and you have a lot of
blanks to shave, the push-n-lock can save some
time. But sometimes it is a pain, and that's
when the other machine with the wheel comes in handy.

You will see as you start getting different shavers. Again, congratulations on the Ediphone machines, they are very nice!
They were a wise purchase I think.

Chuck