The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

There are so many great titles coming over the past several years on the new plastic resin type cylinders. I was hoping that one day they will release George W. Johnson's Laughing Song and something from Sophie Tucker's 4 minute records. It just seems so hard to find anything for Sophie Tucker on cylinder.

I am curious how the new cylinders are being made. Some are being cast from molds prepared from new wax masters, but others are being made from molds prepared from existing cylinders and therefore may have scratches or other defects. How are those molds made? Anybody know?

There are also some plastic diamond disc reproductions made i saw on you tube one of Let us not forget

Victrolacollector wrote:There are also some plastic diamond disc reproductions made i saw on you tube one of Let us not forget

Could you post a link? That sounds pretty cool. Is the maker noted? It would be great to get the Lord of the Rings soundtrack on diamond disc.

For everyone else, who is making the reproduction cylinders?

Vulcan Records in the UK makes reproduction cylinders. http://www.phonographcylinders.com/index.php
You can also get different new cylinders from the Berlin Phonograph Works. http://www.berlinphonographworks.com/index_de.html

You can also have your own cylinders produced. As far as I know, all those cylinders above are actually made by Vulcan.

Andreas

Here is a link on you tube for the New Edison Diamond Disc reproduction record of Let Us Not Forget

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMlzylQ15_U[/youtube]


I think it really sounds good. That's my Opinion could you imagine that so many new Diamond Discs could be reproduced to include some later music from the early 30's! Maybe Lady Gaga on Diamond Disc just kidding. I wonder what Mr. Edison would think.

P.S. Rob at Edisonia makes some nice cylinders too!

edisonia.com

There are several ways of making plastic cylinders, these are mostly made from epoxy resin for the finished records. There are two ways of making the molds, one is the old way of plating a tapered, wax master, and the other is using a method, where a wax master is put in silicone mold material and a then filled with the resin material. Vulcan uses metal molds made like the Blue Amberol type and they make the majority, Berlin Phonograph Works, The Thomas Negovan single,and Wizard records. Edisonia uses the Silicone method. The hardest part of the operation is making sure that everything is centered properly. I like to stick with traditional metallic soap, for either cut records, for master blanks and even for molded records, because it is more of a lost art process, Paul Morris is also a metallic soap fan. What I am shocked about is how many wax blanks are used, last year I made 125 lbs of blanks for collectors. My biggest year was 300lbs.

ImperialGuardsman wrote:

Victrolacollector wrote:There are also some plastic diamond disc reproductions made i saw on you tube one of Let us not forget

It would be great to get the Lord of the Rings soundtrack on diamond disc.

I wonder how durable the resin is, compared to the original Edison Condensite? As a Pathé collector, I thought it would be nice to make some custom Pathé records; due to the larger groove dimensions, Pathé replicas might last longer than Diamond Disk replicas. I did not know until now that silicon could faithfully capture the delicate indentations of a record. I imagine that a vacuum pump could be used to draw out any air bubbles while making a mold or record. Not needing a metal mold is a real game changer. It seems that casting a disk replica would be far simpler than casting a cylinder, for several reasons. Does anyone know what brand of silicone is used to prepare the molds, or know what brand of epoxy resin is used to make the records?

Victrolacollector wrote:Here is a link on you tube for the New Edison Diamond Disc reproduction record of Let Us Not Forget

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMlzylQ15_U[/youtube]


I think it really sounds good. That's my Opinion could you imagine that so many new Diamond Discs could be reproduced to include some later music from the early 30's! Maybe Lady Gaga on Diamond Disc just kidding. I wonder what Mr. Edison would think.

P.S. Rob at Edisonia makes some nice cylinders too!

edisonia.com

Thanks! That's pretty cool. I wish that a larger scale company would start releasing old formats (78's, Diamonmd Disc, etc.) with original and new music.

The 'let us not forget' Diamond Disc in the youtube video in the previous posting was made by Peter Liebert (nipperhead.com). I saw at the last Wayne, nj phonoshow that he has also made DD copies of 'Bunch at Orange' (in orange plastic!).

I would like to set the record straight on a couple details of my records & molds. Only part of the core of my cylinder molds are silicon. The records are plastic resin, not epoxy, although I do use epoxy for part of the molds.

Here is how our Edisonia cylinder records are made. First, the mold is prepared (assembled and all parts aligned). Plastic resin is mixed and degassed in a vacuum chamber and then poured into the mold. The mold is then placed in a pressure chamber while the resin sets (acts like an injection molding process to force all the air out of the mold). After a couple hours the mold is then removed from the pressure chamber and the core is removed from the mold. The next morning the mold is placed into an industrial oven and the record is then heat cured for 6 hours. After cooling to room temperature, the mold is then subjected to a controlled heat / cool cycle in order to get the mold and record to expand, and then for the finished record to shrink faster than the mold in order to extract it.

I'm always looking for suggestions for selections to release on cylinder records. Contact me off-list with any wants or suggestions. We plan to release a few selections for Busy Bee cylinder phonographs this Spring if there is enough interest.

-Rob
Edisonia Records