The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I have a brown wax cylinder with a hair line crack. Is it possible to fix it?

Paul

I only trust these in the hands of Peter Dilg or "The Record Doctor D.D.S. Michael F. Khanchalian from Monrovia California.

It's more of a desperation move than anything, but I've had some success putting strapping tape around the outer rims of the cylinder. Strapping tape is both strong and (realtively) inflexible, so it should hold the cylinder together once you put it on the mandrel. This only works if you have a single crack across the length of the cylinder.

Once I put epoxy onto the inner surface of a black wax cylinder (a not very good one with a hairline), this probably won't work on a brown wax though, it may destroy the inner surface

Years ago I used to take a small paper clip and slightly bend it in 4 places so it curved a bit - the same as a cylinder record. Then I would warm the cylinder in my hand, while heating the curved paper clip on the stove. When it was just short of red hot, I'd pick it up with tweezers, position it directly over the crack while gently squeezing it shut with my hand, and drop the paper clip across the crack. The hot clip would sink right into the wax. I did this on two or three 5-inch cylinders that came my way broken.

If I was doing this on a standard-size cylinder, I'd use a very small paper clip.

Of course, if the crack isn't a clean one, or if there are chips missing, the record won't be playable.

George P.

EDIT: I hope it wasn't necessary for me to mention that I dropped the paper clip on the INSIDE of the record!

Wax welding. It works for me! The record in the photo is not one I repaired. It's only there for scale.

I have sucessfully welded several black wax records from the inside to keep the crack closed when inserting onto a mandrel. However, once you have even a hairline crack, even if repaired, each playing wears the crack larger. If you thought you had a unique title that needed to be saved for posterity, repair and play it once to record; then put the record away.

The paper clip method is how the record DR repairs cracks, he uses an alcohol lamp, make sure to scale your end though so it does not poke through the surface onto the top of the playing surface. Dental wax, can be used to fill the chips.

Thank you for the tips!

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but if a very old cylinder breaks directly after (thank God) having been digitized, do I still need to preserve the pieces? It's a copy of "Old Folks at Home" on a Columbia cylinder, released in the late 1890s although that's not to say that my particular copy was made then. Any information helps.