The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I'm not aware of any vertical recording process ever used by consumer machines other than cylinder. Disc based home records were all lateral, pre-grooved or not. Gib Epling at West Tech Services rebuilds rochelle salt crystal cutters and pickups with new ceramic piezo elements which aren't prone to moisture failure like the rochelle salt crystals used from the 30's through the early 1950's. Ceramic cutters are prone to being overloaded though, but if you watch the volume indicator and don't send too much juice through it, you can make very good sounding recordings on "home" equipment. Cutting styluses still surface on eBay as well as lacquer blanks. Both are still made by Apollo Masters but they're really pricey, more so now that Apollo is the only lacquer plant and cutting stylus source in the US. More pricey than they should be, but they are available. If you're careful with a sapphire cutter, it will last a long time for home use. Old lacquers are pretty dry but they will cut, some better than others. Just make sure that with old cutting lathes that the electronics are rebuilt with new caps and any other parts that need replacing, that the idler tire is in good shape (Terry's Rubber Rollers does an excellent job) and that the machine is lubed and adjusted properly. I have restored many home recorders but now am mainly only interested in Presto equipment. Good "home" recorders to pick up if you're interested are Meissner (9-1065 model; they show up on eBay a lot), Wilcox-Gay machines ("Recordio") if they happen to be in good shape - these show up in all sorts of conditions, and the Silvertone or Montgomery Ward machines are surprisingly good quality. Both Sears and MW used the generic recording lathe mechanism made by General Industries which is fairly easy to restore and the electronics are pretty decent as well. Make sure if you have a crystal microphone that you get it rebuilt as well. If you crank up the volume on some machines you can get away with using a dynamic mic, but the recording will be much brighter and natural sounding if you use a crystal mic.