The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Chuck wrote:It's just fun to note how different individuals
market their products.

Some like to talk about quantity.

Others go for quality.

Yet others go for fancy boxes and labels, and never
mention either quantity nor quality.

Everyone has their own gimmick, I guess.

All I know from personal experience is that in
order to really get it right, it takes so much time
and work that it's not even funny. If I was going to
attempt to make a vast quantity of multiple thousands
of brown wax blank cylinders, it would take up
a vast quantity of time to accomplish that task.

Now if one had a factory with workers and large
bunches of molds and large quantities of wax to cast,
then making multiple thousands would be a workable
goal to consider.

Ever notice how when a modern computer keyboard
key is held down, the last character keeps
repeating?

Like 1400 turns into 14000000000000000000000000

For God's sake, leave him alone! What kind of perverse pleasure are you getting from this?

I agree. I am suitably impressed every time I come across an artisan who is able to craft such beautiful works and takes a lot of pride in his or her work.

Keep it up edisonphonoworks you are an inspiration

Bruce

I agree with you Chuck about qnty over quality. I like that I have slowed it down now to enjoy it. The more time spent the lower the surface noise. That is why cylinders now are a hobby so I too can concentrate,on it as a research project. Insead of worring about deadlines I can do those branch exeriments and actually document the process and changes more carefully.

JerryVan wrote:

Chuck wrote:It's just fun to note how different individuals
market their products.

Some like to talk about quantity.

Others go for quality.

Yet others go for fancy boxes and labels, and never
mention either quantity nor quality.

Everyone has their own gimmick, I guess.

All I know from personal experience is that in
order to really get it right, it takes so much time
and work that it's not even funny. If I was going to
attempt to make a vast quantity of multiple thousands
of brown wax blank cylinders, it would take up
a vast quantity of time to accomplish that task.

Now if one had a factory with workers and large
bunches of molds and large quantities of wax to cast,
then making multiple thousands would be a workable
goal to consider.

Ever notice how when a modern computer keyboard
key is held down, the last character keeps
repeating?

Like 1400 turns into 14000000000000000000000000

For God's sake, leave him alone! What kind of perverse pleasure are you getting from this?

Agreed.

This is a tiny niche market, not a large, highly contested commercial arena. Both of you are welcome: stop trying to run the other down, and offer your products on their own merits.

Bill

I have certainly never ran Chuck's cylinders down. I have and always have given them a lot of praise. If I do not have any cylinders in stock, I send people his way without hesitation, and still will. If anything his constructive information, has been much of a help,not a hindrance, at all. There is some standardization in the process, yes there is some slight differences, as our individuality adds, however the basic amounts of brands of stearic acid, amount of hydrated alumina, cooking time, and additions and times are very much the same, the moulding differences have to do with mold materials and thickness however both are preheated. We even use the same brand of sodium hydroxide, and stearic acid. I wish though my (and Thomas Edison)old favorite was still available Lewis' Lye, but idiots have spoiled that.

My posts here on this subject are certainly not
meant to run anyone down. Basically, I am just
razzing Shawn about the large quantity of
blanks he says he has made.

Shawn already knows what my attitude about this is.
Him and I have talked this over for many years now.

Shawn and I have traded many many stories and experiences
about making these blanks. I have openly shared with him
all of my findings, and he has done the same with me.

So, if anyone, including Shawn would read into my posts
here any malicious intent on my part, that is not
how it was meant. It was only meant to come off as
more or less of a friendly ribbing about the high number.

So far I myself have been making blanks since the summer
of 2009. That adds up to 8 summers which I have spent
making blanks. During that time, I have produced
exactly 381 blanks. I keep detailed records of
who has them. Each one has a serial number.

I have only one mold. My process is exceedingly slow.
I spend many hours testing the blanks to confirm that
they record and play properly.

So, I am only stating that I have been in this for
8 years now, and have made 381 cylinders.

So, if I kid around a little about how a modern
keyboard key when pressed down and held down
repeats the last digit, it goes something like
this:

381 and then it goes 3811111111111111111111

Haha. get it? Laugh boys Laugh!!!

(it's a joke son!)

Now what did I say there that's so bad, huh?
And if anyone here can't seem to take it, too bad.
I know Shawn can because I've seen him work.
I also know that by saying these things that certain folks here will get the wrong idea about what I am
actually getting at.

At least a friendly online joking session is not
nasty caustic fumes, nor is it 450 degree hot liquid
wax which will splatter up an burn whomever is close by.

Those who work with this stuff can take it.
It takes a rather thick skin to endure all of the things
which bombard you when you decide to jump into this
market. (Including jokes about keyboard keys)

Oh, and I will add also that as far as this being
an artistic craft, yes it is, but only partially.

It is actually based strictly on the scientific method.
That, plus some chemistry. There are, admittedly, still
some areas of it which seem to defy logic. But I stress
the word "seem" here. It only "seems" that way because
all of the data is not being taken into account to
form a complete scientific model of the entire situation.

And so, lacking a fully funded modern staff of
professional research chemists, and a fully funded
modern clean-room production facility, what we
actually have here is a couple of guys figuring
things out as they go along.

There are areas of this which resemble an art.
It's a black art. That part is no joke, that
is dead serious!

Glad to see you meant him no malice.

I'll look for more of your material on Comedy Central. (Now it's me who's joking.)

Best to all!

Hey it was interesting though post some of those pictures. Yes Chuck and have many hours of shop talk. We do share new discoveries and processes.

One of the funniest ones was that time when Shawn came
down to my place and brought all of his cylinder making
stuff. We set up shop in my garage and Shawn went about
whipping up a quick test batch of wax. We cast a cylinder
from it and quickly tested that blank. It was ok, but the
wax was not quite right, it needed some tweaking.
We had left the wax cooking while we tested the first
blank. A few hours later we cast another one and it turned
out much better. It was much darker than the first one
because I had cranked up the heat on the wax, forgot about
it, and left it there! Out of the two of us, I am
the "high temperature" guy because I advocate cooking
the wax up at 270 degrees centigrade. We have this ongoing
debate about the relative merits of cooking at high, high
temps, vs using much cooler temps. Anyway, that little
experiment in which the heat ran off the scale for
a while produced a very nice blank. More or less
by accident...

One very important discovery I think, that Chuck made, and increased greatly the quality of American blanks,is the no virgin wax law, If you make a batch of phonograph cylinder compound and do not anneal it, that is condition it, no matter how carefully you make it, most likely will be defective. And just heating and cooling once is not enough! If lets say, you follow and old wax formula, and when it is quiescent, just pour it in a mold, (per-heated preferred) The molecules are still not all the way combined , and some effects such as stars and streaks, and crystalline structure will result. It must be heated and cooled at least twice before the wax will make a good blank. Below is a sample of annealed wax, notice the structure is perfect. It takes a good deal of time and effort to do this, but the results are excellent blanks. Edison also used a three melt process (actually the wax is made, heated/ cooled, heated cooled, and then used to cast a blank so heated four times.)