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After seeing these photos, I could swear I've seen them before. Yet, even after a day a percolating, I can't recall where.

In any event, it's quite a machine! Thanks for posting these, Starkton.

Merry Christmas to all, and God bless us, every one!

George P.

Machinist,

I appreciate your kind words, although I really don't deserve them.

Thanks for your help to keep our forum a pleasant and informative place, and a Merry Christmas to you and yours!

George P.

The pictures were on ebay a while back, Glad someone who appreciates them got them. Merry Christmas , Bob

bobsled48 wrote:The pictures were on ebay a while back, Glad someone who appreciates them got them. Merry Christmas , Bob

Ahhh... Thanks Bob!

George P.

Thanks for posting the pictures. Has anyone figured out how he changed cylinders on that machine? I also found the horn crane interesting. I would have expected a floor crane. Something else interesting to me is how easily that machine could have been adapted to record and play 3 channel sound, similar to the Columbia Multiplex Grand.
I am continually amazed at the talent among us that so often goes unrecognized.

Jim

This is certainly an interesting machine, but I'm still trying to figure out what the point of it was. Putting on my contrarian hat here: I'm not all that familiar with the classical works available on cylinder, but aside from attempting to shorten the time interval between the several parts of a long orchestral work (assuming any were recorded on multiple cylinders), what's the advantage of this beast? It also appears that the mandrels may all be operated by the same drive shaft. So you couldn't change out the first cyl while the third was playing. I don't get it. This is just another example of why a great number of inventions never saw the light of day commercially - they just didn't make any sense.

Maybe he wanted to work in a night club as a 'CJ' and this machine could put out non stop music!

I think it's a classic example of the work process being more important than the result.

There would have been as much as 30 seconds of silence between records, plus noise as the stylus slipped off one record and onto the next...unless he incorporated a device to raise the stylus between records and a coarse thread to move the carriage quickly to the next one.

Wow, odd! If you look carefully at photo #2 and study the motor detail, it has 2 cranks, one at each end. Yet, through a complicated series of gearing, both springs, though individually wound, power the "motor".

The other thing I find odd is his workshop photo. The lathe appears to be a South Bend and the drill press an Atlas, or possibly Sears Companion, both of late twenties to mid thirties vintage. Long after anyone cared much about cylinder phonographs. That's not to say however that the workshop photo was taken at the same time that the "triplex" machine was created.

As to how cylinders are changed, a possible suggestion is that each of the three tapered mandrels slid off a common shaft, allowing for the mounting of each cylinder and subsequent replacement of the three mandrels, each with a cylinder on board. The three mandrels would be somehow keyed to the main shaft.

The burning question, as already asked, is of course, WHY??? Then again, if it were a great idea, we would all have one in our collections.