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The earliest string core cylinder I know bears a piano recording of Professor John Knowles Paine of Harvard, taken in Boston in April 1889. Wangemann mentioned that cylinders manufactured at that time "will turn foggy in a very few weeks."

The string core had at least two advantages:
- The chance of breakage was reduced (in fact, of the five string core cylinders I have seen, some were cracked, but none was broken)
- It could be marked on the inside, e.g. with pencil

But also a number of disadvantages:
- The thread ends of the string core became loose and produced an eccentricity when put on the mandrel
- Because of loose thread ends it was difficult to mold cylindrically
- Air-bubbles were made by the moisture in the string
- Because of that a wax composition had to be used which wasn't affected by moisture (but turned foggy very soon, see Wangemann's statement above)

Although the disadvantages prevailed, the reduction of breakage was found decisive by The North American Phonograph Co. Therefore, all orders for blanks from the phonograph companies after 20 May 1889 were filled with string core, so called "new style," cylinders. As Norman mentioned, rubber sleeves were furnished with the cylinders to be placed on the brass mandrel.

At some point in August 1889 string core cylinders were finally dispensed with. Although the cylinders became less tough, the elimination of moisture permitted the use of a different wax composition which gave a smoother cut, reducing the scratching sounds.

To sum up, string core cylinders were manufactured from at least April 1889 to August 1889.

I'm afraid I can't spend much time sitting in this chair, but I posted a photo of an Edison string core cylinder in this thread:

http://forum.talkingmachine.info/viewto ... ore#p47459

Best to all,

George P.

I hope you're recovering well George.
Thanks
Andreas

Thank you Andreas, and to all who have wished me well. So far I'm doing better than I have any right to expect. I sincerely thank you all for your kindness. Also - please - if you're a man 50 or over, get that PSA checked every year. It's a simple blood test. If prostate cancer is in your family, start at 40.

Back to brown wax... I've never seen a thread core cylinder for sale before the eBay example (well, and the one I bought through sheer luck in 1978). It's a shame about the condition, but as an artifact it's about as rare a record as one could hope to find.

George P.

Speaking of early cylinders Is there any original, yellow wax 1888 perfected type, smooth bore wax cylinders in the hands of private collectors? What variations is there in Edison and Columbia pre 1895 records (The Columbias would still be on Edison Blanks.) I do have the Fabrizio, George F Paul books.

Here is some new high definition photos of my new blanks, I think you can really see they are much better than blanks I made in the past, I just took constructive criticism very seriously and put it to good use, getting all the glitches gone. These new blanks are very quiet and have very low pops and clicks, they also are maximum thickness so you can shave them many times to make many takes on them.

edisonphonoworks wrote:Speaking of early cylinders Is there any original, yellow wax 1888 perfected type, smooth bore wax cylinders in the hands of private collectors?

Unlikely, for, if it were, the cylinder must have been stolen from the laboratory. The yellow wax type was made for exhibitions and testing purposes only, and never sold to the public.

These may be the closest thing to ownership of 1888 records in private hands, these are in my collection.

Shawn, these blanks look very authentic, great work!

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.