The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Harvey -

I like that idea... goodness knows I have a few broken Gold Moldies that I haven't been able to bring myself to toss...

Retrograde wrote:Fabric shops sell bees wax.

Thanks for the great tip. Went to Fabricland in Toronto and sure enough, they sell it in small tab-like packages. Michael's arts and crafts also sells it but in very large blocks. Fabricland for the win!

Get yourself some honey with the comb, eat the honey spit out the wax, wash it, and melt it into a handy form to use. It takes only a very small amount, about like a medium crumb to be enough to seal the mica diaphragm.

Phonofreak wrote:Here is what I have done: Since I couldn't find bees wax in my area, or didn't try hard enough, I use broken black wax cylinders. I had a black wax cylinder break on me(ouch) and I used the black wax to seal the needle bar on a disk reproducer. I carefully placed some black wax crumbs around the needle bar and used a soldering iron to melt the wax around the needle bar. It's worked fine for me.
Harvey Kravitz

My only concern with this would be that if the "wax" broke free from the diaphragm, it would start causing a rattle since it is so rigid and brittle. Beeswax would be preferable because it is still somewhat pliable at room temperature and forms more of a seal. The gold molded cylinder dust would be similar to cementing it on with shellac, I imagine. Just my $0.02

A few years ago, I too was hunting for beeswax
to use for rebuilding common Edison home
style recorders.

I ended up looking online, and found a candle
making supply place that has it.

It cost only a few bucks, and the shipping
was very low too, they shipped it in a
small padded envelope. It's a piece about
a quarter inch thick by 3 by 5 inches, or so.
It's yellow. Works very well on Edison
recorders. Even used it on one particular
recorder to fasten the copper stylus holder
to the .002 inch thick mica diaphragm.

At that time, I had already ordered a bottle
of Peter Wall's stratena for that, but it
hadn't arrived yet and I wanted to test that
recorder. The beeswax worked very well holding the copper to the mica.

That's been 5 years ago now, and it's still
on there and works fine. Beeswax also works
great as a dampening material when one runs
across a real blasty recorder that needs to
be toned down a bit. Just pile on some more
beeswax, until it hushes up and works right.
If you go over, and put too much on, and it
gets too quiet, it comes off easily to adjust.

Chuck

Good point. Thought of that years ago, when I was waxing stylus bars. What I learned was when I melted the wax with the soldering iron. It seemed like the wax was "reconstituted" as it flowed and sealed the air leaks. I've done this over 20 years ago, and everything is still holding up. I do want to try the bees wax method especially for floating cylinder reproducers.
Harvey Kravitz

HisMastersVoice wrote:

Phonofreak wrote:Here is what I have done: Since I couldn't find bees wax in my area, or didn't try hard enough, I use broken black wax cylinders. I had a black wax cylinder break on me(ouch) and I used the black wax to seal the needle bar on a disk reproducer. I carefully placed some black wax crumbs around the needle bar and used a soldering iron to melt the wax around the needle bar. It's worked fine for me.
Harvey Kravitz

My only concern with this would be that if the "wax" broke free from the diaphragm, it would start causing a rattle since it is so rigid and brittle. Beeswax would be preferable because it is still somewhat pliable at room temperature and forms more of a seal. The gold molded cylinder dust would be similar to cementing it on with shellac, I imagine. Just my $0.02