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I play my 1920s and 30s 78s on my Victor Orthophonic Credenza. (I enjoy hearing the records played on this wonderful machine.) I use only bamboo needles, which do very little--if any--damage to the records. Over the years, I've noticed that the the bamboo needle will wear out prematurely (before a record has finished) if the record has wear. That is, the bamboo needle seems to perform properly only on records in excellent or better condition. My only solution, to date, has been to find top condition records. Have other individuals experienced this? All comments welcome.

Fibre / thorn needles wear faster on records that have already been worn by steel needles, that's common. The roughness of the grooves acts like sandpaper to the bamboo/cactus fibers. I personally use cactus needles and on a worn disc, the needle can be blunt and useless before the record is halfway played. On nice discs, I can get several sides without sharpening or replacing the needle. You're better off using steel needles on worn discs.

There is nothing that can be done to prevent fibre needles from wearing fast on a worn record. Fibere needles will also wear fast on clean or unworn recordings that contain a lot of percussion or loud passages. The loud groove wears faster on the bamboo. Fibre needles are great for many vocal, piano and quieter pieces - especially string pieces. You can hear a wonderfully crisp and clean Fritz Kreisler or string quartet.

For very worn 78s unless they are very rare, you'll find it actually better to listen to them with a worn needle rather than a brand new one. Just listen to a clean record with a new needle and then listen to your worn record with the same needle - just don't try putting in a worn needle that has already been discarded. The worn needle has a more blunt or wider point which fills the worn wider groove. For modern equipment sometimes a larger diameter stylus is used to help fill the groove and allow the cartridge to correctly respond. For very rare records I would stick to modern equipment. But for abused records - they have already been abused or over-played with worn needles, using a steel needle that already has a play or 2 will improve the sound. Just discard that needle then and start again with a fresh needle and clean record...

I do have a trick for extending the life of your fibre needles in general though. Most needles will allow you to get about 7 or 8 cuts cuts out of them to sharpen - especially if you use a sharpener with a stop like a Wade. You'll find though that as the needle gets shorter it changes the rake or angle of the sound box to the record. this causes the triangular point to wear faster. You can pull the needle farther out of the socket or you can correct the rake by bringing the record up to the needle. This can be done by simply stacking 1 or 2 records on the turntable under the record you are playing. It allows the shorter sharpened fibre to play at the same angle as when it was new and longer...

As Brandon mentioned Cactus needles are also much gentler on records - They are what I prefer for playing Victor LP transcription discs on their counterpart contemporary equipment. The Chromium multi-play needles scare me and ate up the Vitrolac LP discs.

Great advise! This is also what I have found and practice.

I'll extend the topic by saying that you'll be able to mange better volume control with these fiber alternatives. I don't care for overly loud music many times. In the calm of the evening I'll pick out the thinnest needle or alter the thickness of a bamboo to make it so. They are strong and you can get whisper softness out of your phonograph. This suggestion is not for very worn discs, though you will find that very thin needles wear into the groove better and may not fail before the record ends.

James.

Thank you for all of the replies. Very helpful. As one responder noted, surface wear is not the only enemy of bamboo needles; loud passages can also be problematic. I'll be looking for cactus needles.
A related question--I've noticed that later (1930s) re-issues of 1920s jazz classics don't always play well with the bamboo needles--even if the records are in excellent condition. Are the grooves different (finer?)in these re-issued records?
Thanks, again.

Normandie wrote:A related question--I've noticed that later (1930s) re-issues of 1920s jazz classics don't always play well with the bamboo needles--even if the records are in excellent condition. Are the grooves different (finer?)in these re-issued records?
Thanks, again.

That depends. If you're talking about sets like the Brunswick Jazz reissue sets, those were made from pretty gritty and rather lousy shellac that I can't imagine would hold up to bamboo, even. The red label Columbia sets (Armstrong, Bix et al) are all master pressed (well, mostly) from original stampers on nice laminated Columbia pressings. I have no problem playing those with bamboo on my machines. In fact, I buy extras of those sets just to have for my acoustic machines since the original issues of most of that stuff is scarce enough, let alone in excellent condition.

Sean

HisMastersVoice wrote:I personally use cactus needles and on a worn disc

Really? And where do you buy them?

Marco Gilardetti wrote:

HisMastersVoice wrote:I personally use cactus needles and on a worn disc

Really? And where do you buy them?

I haven't bought any in quite some time, but I would buy them whenever they came up on eBay, at phonograph shows, auctions, wherever! Considering I've only used a couple of packets in the last 5 years, I don't think I need to buy any more...ever

I wonder how you could stock up so many, as they are so scarce on eBay. But I suppose things were different in the past decades.

OrthoSean wrote:

Normandie wrote:A related question--I've noticed that later (1930s) re-issues of 1920s jazz classics don't always play well with the bamboo needles--even if the records are in excellent condition. Are the grooves different (finer?)in these re-issued records?
Thanks, again.

That depends. If you're talking about sets like the Brunswick Jazz reissue sets, those were made from pretty gritty and rather lousy shellac that I can't imagine would hold up to bamboo, even. The red label Columbia sets (Armstrong, Bix et al) are all master pressed (well, mostly) from original stampers on nice laminated Columbia pressings. I have no problem playing those with bamboo on my machines. In fact, I buy extras of those sets just to have for my acoustic machines since the original issues of most of that stuff is scarce enough, let alone in excellent condition.

Sean

Cactus thorn needles were sold well into the 1940's & I believe later where there was a market for them. I have a flyer from a package of Peter Grey Kakti needles that explains that the cutting off of special hardening lacquers from Japan has affected the production of needles. "Does this mean the Japs are smarter than us? IT DOES NOT!"