The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Only that I dont need to because I've got boxes & boxes of NOS needle tins. Plus the cost of having needles shipped from USA make it cheaper for me to buy NOS on ebay here (provided they're not rare tins of course). HMV, Decca & few other brands are good quality needles & dont cost much normally.
I have tried the new needles made in New Zealand & was very pleased with them, but it's still easier for me to buy off ebay.

Everything I've read on the subject states that the points of various caliber needles are approximately the same diameter. The thickness and length of the shank have a tremendous amount of influence on the passage of the needle along the groove, related to the force of the vibrations elicited from the sound record in the groove walls, and their transmission through the shank -- and if the mainspring is not as strong as it once was, then it might get "stuck up".

gramophoneshane wrote:

beaumonde wrote:The tips of the various needles are of the same approx. 0.003" diamter (3 mil) -- it's the shank that differs. So a soft tone wouldn't be riding lower in the groove than a loud tone needle.

I'm afraid I totally disagree with this. The taper of the point is much different to start with, and if the groove wall contact is the same, how do you explain sometimes being able to play a well worn disc with a soft tone but a loud tone will grind the record to a hault?
After using many off-brand machines over the years, I've found those that wear records for whatever reason (tracking force or error etc), it's been my experience that soft tone needles cause even more damage than loud tones, which I can only put down to an increased PSI of a soft tone within the groove.
This is all using original NOS needles though, as I seldom buy or use newly manufactured needles.

I wanted to revive this topic because I am still a little confused about it.

From personal experience I have only had black dust appear on needles used on rebuilt reproducers; one a Victrola No.2, and the other my Brunswick Double Ultona. Strangely, I don’t recall it happening on an un-rebuilt reproducer. Both reproducers sound fine and I do not detect any change in the records either.

Could it just be down to the condition/age of the records being played?

My experience has been that records that are worn the most, tend to shed the most black dust. Acoustic records never had a smooth wall, even when new. The rough surface of those records is continuously worn with each playing, so there will always be somewhere between a tiny amount and a large amount of material (relatively speaking) being shed with each playing.

Additionally, it is true that steel needles are all relatively the same tip diameter and angle. It is the records themselves that varied in groove depth, wall angle and groove bottom angle, from batch to batch and manufacturer to manufacturer. These acoustic recordings were made from chemically etched matrixes, a process that does not lend to consistency like a lathed matrix does. In order to be sure the needle will respond to all of the groove data, the needles were intentionally made soft enough to wear into the groove quickly, usually within the first few revolutions.

Lastly, the reproducer is another important element in record wear. The compliance of a reproducer can vary considerably from maker to maker, or decreasing as age hardens the resilient parts, or changing as they become misadjusted or worn. Other reproducer factors are the mass of the kinetic parts and the kind and amount of dampening of the reproducer elements.

Another point of view that struck me is that I've noticed that records slowly selfdestruct whether you play them or not, cracks appear for "no reason" all over the surface sometimes...
How many records do you think will Still be playable after say 200 yrs?

Sometimes I get the impression that they like to be played, moved around and so on, IF nothing else, weight and tension Will be distributed differently... A sort of exercise if you will. After all they were made to be enjoyed. I doubt our collections Will meet their end because they're worn out!

@Startgroove: please define chemically etched matrices vs. lathed matrices.

Jim

In my experience, with restored reproducers which are well compliant, and tracking is properly aligned, and the record is good condition, and pre-1935, and good steel needles, there's no black dust after playing. Spoiled or greyed grooves, despite the other conditions being alright, produce black dust and deteriorate still more the record at the greyed parts.
I imagine that when a record is pressed, under such high temperature and pressure, the shellac exudes from the mixture to the surface, thus the shiny appearance of a new record.
If a bad needle or any of the other bad agents forces too much the surface of a groove, the outer surface richer shellac breaks under the high needle pressure, and the greying that appears is the mixture below, not so rich in shellac, and rougher. That's the grey colouration that can be observed in forced grooves. When a steel needle rides again over these greyed grooves, the rough mixture disintegrates still more, and that's the black powder we see. And the deterioration in this area augments, due to the needle carving on the record mixture.
Specially on loud passages, better if there is good bass, with a lens or even naked eye, you can see the broken walls between adjacent grooves. It's typical of low piano notes, or heavy orchestral passages. When observed from a certain distance under a strong light, you see the grooves punctuated like a dashed line.
The same occurs in high strident notes, but as the wavelength is much shorter, it cannot be seen at naked eye, you only see the greying.
The notes that make the mechanical system resonate, do the worst harm. They can also be noticed by ear, as these sound very strident. Nearby notes that don't resonate, even being recorded at loud volume, don't spoil the grooves. If we could get rid of resonating frequencies of the system, carrying them out of the spectrum of the recorded music, the durability of records would be much higher. That's what happens with certain records that seem to last undamaged much more than others. The are sides that can be played with a bamboo needle several times without repointing!
The key of a well restored soundbox (and tonearm, etc) is that i it doesn't have resonating points in the recorded spectrum, so the grooves can go under this system with no noticeable deterioration.
An example from my beloved HMV DB-1126, of which I've only seen this copy, which i immediately bought, in 41 years collecting. Examined under a lens.

phonojim, Well as the story goes, the earliest (acoustic) recording apparatus did not have the kinetic power to dig, or cut, through the first recording medium. One of the methods devised, had a metal plate coated with a thin layer of wax. The cutting stylus was weighted to the point where it "punctured" through to the metal layer and rode on that surface. As the recording progressed, the wax was removed from the groove, leaving a fine line of exposed metal at the bottom of the groove. That groove was not a V shape, more like a square bottom shape. Upon finishing the recording, the wax coated metal disc was subjected to an erosive wash, which removed some of the metal material at the bottom of the groove. That formed a rough "V" which was a facsimile of the groove in the wax layer. After a couple of processes which cleaned, removed the wax layer, and cleaned again, the remaining surface with etched grooves contained the data necessary for reproduction. From that other copies were pressed, then plated, in order to obtain discs which were used for stamping. Some of the rough texture of the original etched groove walls was transferred to the final copies. It was not unusual for technicians to play the final pressed versions of the disc several times in order to help clean or somewhat "polish" the grooves, before they were shipped for sale to the consumer.
The electric process differed in that a metal disc, with a very heavy layer of a wax like material coating it, was cut using a stylus which removed, by digging, or cleanly gouging, away material in a lathe fashion. The recording stylus was not intended to penetrate the wax like layer. The recording stylus was ground and polished to prescribed, and standardized dimensions, so that each title recorded conformed to all others. This recording process was far more precise in the ability to maintain depth, width and sharp bottom angle of the groove throughout the recording and from one recording to the next. (This was instrumental in leading to the development of jewel tip styli and other long lasting playback needles.) In addition, the groove walls were far smoother and hence not as noisy as the acoustic recording process. The rest of the process was similar to what was done with an acoustic recording after the wax like layer was removed.
There are many other details which I left out in order summarize the differences.
I hope that answers your question.

If you wash a record and play it while it's still wet this will happen. You have to wait a day or two for them to dry off.

One often neglected adjustment that makes a big difference in record wear or lack thereof is leveling the machine. A machine whose deck is off-kilter will cause the tone arm to lean to one side of the groove or the other, putting more stress on the side of the groove that gets more pressure. This will cause wear quickly, as well as diminishing the quality of sound.

In my former home, built in 1890, this was rarely an issue because it was a well-built city house whose floors had stayed pretty much level over time. My current home, circa 1840, is a country house next to a brook that has flooded a few times since built, most notably in the hurricanes of 1938 and 1955. As a result, the structure has settled enough so that much of my furniture, machines especially, require shimming with narrow wood blocks sometimes as much as half an inch thick. Without, the machines are subject to leaning (and wobble!) and checking the needle after playing a record will almost always show black dust. When machines are perfectly level and a new needle is used for each play, I almost never see dust.

Even a slight amount of off-level can make a difference. To play records without damaging them, the tone arm, when at rest, should not "drift" to either side, but should stay in one position while still being capable of easily moving from side to side. It pays to keep a short spirit level on hand to check phonographs periodically.