White masters are back

[edisonphonoworks]

I have resurrected the white cream records from the early 2000s, made with the new spiral core molds, and the formula improved using the best of each component and 13 years of experience. They will be avaible when a total inventory of 400 blanks is reached and only from Century Guild in LA (sometime in June July this year. I just wanted to share the progress of them, I think they are the "holy grail" of blanks.

[operabass78s]

Upon first seeing the title, I thought this would have something to do with minstrel records

[rgordon939]

What will they cost and can I pre order some?

Rich Gordon

[edisonphonoworks]

All ordering is done through Century Guild in LA, I manufacture and ship them there, and Century Guild distributes the blanks. http://centuryguild.wordpress.com/

[VintageTechnologies]

Upon first seeing the title, I thought this would have something to do with minstrel records

I thought this might have been a Golden and Hughes skit on Edison Blue Amberol. "Say dere Rastus, I hear de white masters is back..."

[Chuck]

Nice work! Are those made with the
animal-tallow based stearic?

Are you pre-heating your mold now, or still
going stone cold?

Chuck

[edisonphonoworks]

The mold cycles two records and then is ready to go, it stays warm. There is no crystalinity when you crack open a record solid throughout, I think this all has to do with making the mold of the same material. This is the Acme Hardesty TPAS. I made another batch of the wax today, and it turned out beautifully too, and took 2 hours and 45 minutes to make 3.6 Kg of wax. You must let the wax harden into a cake and remelt it to do a good job.

[Chuck]

Shawn,

I am glad that you can knock them out so fast
like that in a cold mold.

The problem I always run in to each and every
time that I have tried any mold preheat temperature less than 450 degrees Fahrenheit for
one hour prior to pouring, is that bubbles are
trapped inside the wax as it cools.

The low temperature causes the bubbles to be trapped as they are in the process of rising
to the surface. Those pits, as everybody knows, cause the extremely annoying loud pop
when the playback stylus runs over them.

I have found that pouring 450 degree wax into
a 450 degree mold guarantees that the wax stays
as a watery liquid long enough for all the
tiny bubbles to rise to the surface, and therefore not remain trapped inside the blank,
waiting to be shaved into, causing the concave
pit in the recording surface.

I seriously doubt that the materials that the
mold is made out of have much to do with this
general cooling process. Sure, beyond all
doubt, certain materials and thicknesses of
them play a part in the *rate* of cooling.

A thinner mold outer cylinder with a hollow core used will cool faster than a heavier
thicker cylinder and a more solid core will.

Indeed, the mold I currently use must sit
for one hour after pouring, before the core is
loosened, and then it must sit for at least 30
more minutes after that, before the core gets
pulled out.

With all of that said, I still firmly believe
that it is very important to have the liquid
wax meet the mold, with the two things being
at exactly the same temperature. Then, after
the mold has been filled, the wax must then
remain a watery thin liquid for long enough
that all the bubbles float to the surface.

This is documented in the old books.

They tell about submerging the molds in the
wax for long enough for the wax and the molds
to equalize temperatures. The explanation
given is to allow trapped bubbles to escape.

So? How to get the same results when there is
nowhere near enough wax to submerge the mold?
450 degree F oven for one hour works for me!

Slows me down though...dang, I will never be
able to make 10,000 blanks...
Jeez, at an average production of 50 blanks
per year, I will get to 10,000 in about 200
years!

It all boils down to this:

-Mass Production.
-High Quality.
-Priced to sell.

Three things. Pick any two.

Chuck

[edisonphonoworks]

This may be a surprise but these are very non crystaline grain, and solid wax throughout, it has just taken many years of research to overcome. I would like to have a moulding tank but do not at this time, it would be a long skinny pot that you dip the mold in and have headroom to keep the wax above the fill line, but as you can see a very good surface. Early flat end gold moulded records, they actually brought a charge of wax up a brass tube with a mandrel plunger into a mold, which was healed about 2 feet above the wax trough. The molds were only heated to 100 degrees, my molds when working are quite a bit hotter than that, about 150-200 degrees.

[Chuck]

Shawn,

You can say what you will on the subject of
the temperature of your mold.

I am glad that what you do, works for you.

My findings however, indicate that the wax
absolutely needs to remain at a watery-thin
viscosity for long enough to allow all the
tiny bubbles to float up, and out.

When the mold is as cold as what you are talking about, it does the following things:

1) It causes the wax to have a "shock-cooled"
or "flash-cooled" layer that is close to the
mold's surfaces.

2) It causes air bubbles to be trapped inside
of the blank as it cools, because there is
not sufficient time for them to escape.

As you well know by now, it is therefore a game
of Russian Roulette casting into a stone-cold
mold in this way. Are there bubbles inside?
Nobody knows until the blank is shaved down
into. This is precisely why I decided to
guarantee against trapped bubbles by making
darn sure that the wax remains at 450 F for
a good long while after being poured.

Sure, of course, it turns the molding process
into one that takes around 3 hours per blank.
But as I have stated several times now,
you can have speed, or you can have no bubbles,
but you cannot have both. Take your pick.

The term "stone cold" in this case refers to
a mold temperature of any less than around
425 degrees Fahrenheit. I will not even use
425 F any longer. That is too cold to obtain
reliable results.

The more I think about all of this, the more
I want to openly publish all of these findings
so as to leave a solid trail for future generations to use as guidelines when some of
them come along and want to make wax and cast
blanks.

All of these findings can be duplicated by
anyone, at any time. Anyone who doubts any
of this, can try it all for themselves any
time that they want to. It is high time for
some solid facts to be published on this subject of making brown wax and casting it
into recording blanks. That is science.
One basic concept of science is repeatability.
This is what sorts out truth from untruth.

For well over 100 years now, the entire subject
of blanks and brown wax has been shrouded in myth, urban legend, hearsay, and some plain old bunk.

Anyone who ever wants to bad enough, can start
with the raw materials and the mold drawing
and do their own experiments. My aim is to
put out some guidelines for them. Guidelines
which I did not have, and have had to coax
out of nature the long way.

One of these fundamental guidelines is:

"Match the mold temperature to the wax temperature". There. I said it.

Some may disagree and do a tapdance around this
statement. Fine. The phonograph has the final
word. When it says "pop", that means there is
a bubble. It is really hard to argue with
what the phonograph says.

Chuck