The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

While I am not sure of an exact cost, I believe the estimated cost is not nearly that high.

Larry

I also am part of the test batch in the Bruce diamond testing but have had yet to receive mine because of delays in sending it out and having it rebuilt. I'll get back on how they sound and hold up once I receive it, I'm VERY exited
-Tom

I have rebuilt many of the Edison DD reproducers locally, and I can say the biggest complaint has been the price of the stylus. While I understand the cost, labor and research into making a diamond stylus, I can also say many debate owning or even restoring a machine when the stylus can be as much or even half of the value.

Chuck wrote: Jerry Van, you really crack me up with your
"what time it is" analogy. That is not even
close to what this situation is.

Chuck

Chuck,

Thanks for seeing the intended humor.

Your "jump in the lake" question to me made me laugh as well. Is there a not so hidden message there? My answer to you is, it depends who's telling me. The analogy being, that if Steve Medved says the syli are good, I'll take that "jump" without question.

As to the pricing structure. At the moment the anticipated cost installed in "your" stylus bar is $80.00.


Larry

Victrolacollector wrote:I have rebuilt many of the Edison DD reproducers locally, and I can say the biggest complaint has been the price of the stylus. While I understand the cost, labor and research into making a diamond stylus, I can also say many debate owning or even restoring a machine when the stylus can be as much or even half of the value.

I guess I always thought that Edisons more or less long lasting stylus was a good idea. Nothing to change out every record at least. If I compare the Edison stylus by Bruce to the 78 stylus for some major cartridges I have here then the cost is very similar an even less than some, and those generally are rated at a thousand plays before replacement. The problem I had was that something that should have lasted didn't. Some failed the first day, others a few months or a year or so latter.

Larry

Bruce used to make the Transcriber brand replacement styli for Hi Fi/stereo cartridges so they are not strangers to making styli.

Please know and understand this is to answer the following question. At one time the thought an Edison diamond was worn or broken never entered my mind because I did not understand and the purpose of this post is to give understanding. I enjoy reproducer questions because it allows me to have fun with the research I and others have done.

So, how can it possibly be then, that a diamond riding over a smooth, soft, phenolic resin disc turning at a slow, slow 80 RPM can be damaging any diamond?

The answer is one revolution at a time courtesy of friction. Even modern diamonds playing vinyl with a few grams weight get worn. Think of the poor Edison DD diamond with the heavy weight and you will get the idea.

I thought diamonds were forever and as a result I lost over $500 because I purchased diamond reproducers at top dollar with worn, broken and broken and work styli. Please see the photos below to see worn and broken Edison diamonds courtesy of Ron L'Herault.

There are two types of diamonds, at least for our discussion. Gem Grade diamonds and industrial diamonds. If you do not know what Bort is then you should read this. Bort or boart is a term used in the diamond industry to refer to shards of non-gem-grade/quality diamonds. In the manufacturing and heavy industries, "bort" is used to describe dark, imperfectly formed/crystallized diamonds of varying levels of opacity. The lowest grade, "crushing bort", is crushed by steel mortars and used to make industrial-grade abrasive grits. Bob Waltrip accused one company of using material not classified as industrial diamond for making their styli.

The photo of the bort shows a mixture of bort and gem diamonds. Some of the early Edison diamonds are large and white, the later ones are small and dark.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bort

When you think of a diamond you think of your mother's diamond ring and might be tempted to talk to a jeweler about diamonds and if you do you will get a jeweler's perspective on gem grade diamonds. Polishing a faucet that was on the diamond in your Mother's ring is much different that wearing the tip of a diamond that is .0035 in diameter. 20 pound printer paper is .0038 thick to give you an idea of the tiny surface speeding along at 80 rpm. You get wear not visible to the naked eye but thanks to Ron L'Herault you can see the wear.

Do sapphires wear? Anyone who has a Model H sapphire that has played celluloid cylinders will tell you that they do wear, you can see this wear with a loupe and hear it with degraded sound and eventually an echo and very low volume. We all accept that sapphires wear.

Diamond is the hardest known natural material on the Mohs scale of mineral hardness, where hardness is defined as resistance to scratching and is graded between 1 (softest) and 10 (hardest). Diamond has a hardness of 10 (hardest) on this scale and is four times harder than corundum, 9 Mohs. Diamond's hardness has been known since antiquity, and is the source of its name.

Ruby and Sapphire are scientifically the same mineral but just different colors. Ruby is the red variety, and Sapphire is the variety that encompasses all other colors, although the most popular and valued color of Sapphire is blue. Sapphire is also only used to describe the gem variety, otherwise it is simply called Corundum.

If sapphires wear and diamond is four times harder than sapphire it is reasonable to deduce that diamonds wear also but at a slower rate. In fact this is the reason they made the stylus microscope which is very hard to find today because few people use vinyl records these days.

I have seen hundreds of Edison diamonds and I estimate that only 5% of the original Edison diamonds are still good because of wear or the fact that they are broken. The gem quality diamond and the industrial diamond are quite different, but remember people used to use a hammer and chisel to separate diamond to make smaller stones.

Edison used to plate bare diamonds with silver and solder them into the cup on the stylus bar, I have found 5 like this. The one was so badly broken that only 20% of the original diamond was left. Edison found that these diamonds were easily broken by careless lowering of the reproducer so he created his diamond assembly. I will post the excerpt from EDAR by Ron Dethlefson next which explains Edison's diamond assemblies and how they are made. I will also post how to be careful with your Edison diamonds. I have broken Edison diamonds and know of people that have.

I have removed many of Edison's diamond assemblies and due to a lack of tolerance many are both press fit and soldered in place, only a few will push out when heated. Edison diamond assemblies are supposed to be around .074 but all vary in circumference to the extent it is easily seen with the naked eye.

The only people I have seen wear out diamonds are Larry and Bob Waltrip. If I remember correctly Bob told me an Edison diamond was good for around 450 hours. He went through at least one a year as he listened while he worked on reproducers. Most people do not play enough records to wear out even sapphires today, so far no one I have rotated a sapphire for has asked for another rotation.

The reason I am having different people test the diamonds is the same reason I have my wife do the final sound test when I rebuild reproducers.

I want to be 100% certain the diamonds are good. That is why I chose Larry to test the first one in this batch. Larry is the only person I know who plays so many DD records and I trust him as he has been my good friend for years. This is the third batch, the first two did not turn out well so Bruce continued to improve them.

There are many people to thank for the Bruce diamond project. Ron L'Herault, Larry H., Charles Smith, Rob Lomas, and Scott. Without all these people helping me nothing would have been accomplished. I would run out of space if I listed all the people who have helped me and many who did will read this and thanks to you as well.

If this does not work out it is better to shoot at a target and miss than not try at all. I really appreciate this Forum and all those who make this a such a wonderful hobby.

The bottom broken stylus is an original Edison that belonged to a man named Bruce

How to play a DD record to protect the diamond:

Make sure the limit loop pin is in the center of the limit loop and lower the reproducer on the stopped record in the starting grooves. Release the turntable stop and use your hand to help start the record. I never drop the needle on a moving record, and make sure the record surface is clean and free of defects as the needle is easily damaged by such. The older black label records with the three dimples in the label area have more surface noise, and to grade a DD record use a bright light to examine the bottom of the groove, a worn record will have brown or gray at the bottom of the groove and will not sound good. Look at the record in sunlight or a very strong flashlight and never play cracked or damaged records.

The diamond is a DD stylus bar is very fragile because of the heavy weight that is on it. Compare the weight of a modern turntable stylus arm and you can see the difference. Diamonds can be easily broken if you are not careful, I had one guy break a diamond the first time he played a record, so always be careful. This is important on both new and old diamonds.

When used as a DD stylus diamonds are weak and must be carefully shielded from damage:

Toughness relates to a material's ability to resist breakage from forceful impact. The toughness of natural diamond has been measured as 3.4 MN m-3/2,[10] which is good compared to other gemstones, but poor compared to most engineering materials (like steel, plastics, ceramics and composites). As with any material, the macroscopic geometry of a diamond contributes to its resistance to breakage. Diamond is therefore more fragile in some orientations than others.

According to Edison Diamond Disc Re-Creations records & artists 1910-1929 page 107:

In this process the diamonds were first silver plated, then mounted on rods with paraffin, plated for 72 hours with nickel layers electro deposited under tension. The styli were thus held under layers of nickel at thousands of pounds of pressure. The nickel-encased diamonds were then polished to conical shape, the nickel at the stylus point being found away as the diamond was polished. The finished stylus was then soldered into its stylus bar. In the early days, bare diamonds were just soldered into bars and were prone to breakage when carelessly lowered onto the record.

Back to me:

The earliest bars have the bare diamond soldered in; the later ones were first plated with nickel as explained above and then the nickel diamond assembly was soldered in. To understand this think of a wooden pencil the diamond is the lead. When the pencil is sharpened the wood is removed and the lead is shaped, the wood is the nickel and the lead is the diamond.

EDAR page 107

Thank you EdisonReproducers, for posting
all of that detailed and in-depth information!!

We need that kind of thing in order to all
be better educated on these intricate details.
That kind of info adds greatly to the
cause we all share.

Jerry Van, no offense meant about the
lake-jump scenario. It's just what they
always used to say.

Chuck