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Not mine. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Antique-Edison- ... Sw9mFWF-Jz
(Is that a WHITE wax cylinder on far right - or just the moldiest?!)

That is just sickening, what a shame. Even if you were to reuse the case, which I'd like, one would have quite a challenge ensuring complet mold death.

You are correct - there is a lot of mold growth - a ton of mold growth

briankeith wrote:You are correct - there is a lot of mold growth - a ton of mold growth

The horror the horror!

Old time remedy to get rid of mold - set an open bowl of vinegar in the case and leave it there for a couple days with the lid closed. Worked great for me with a nice old trunk that was terribly moldy. Cliff

CDBPDX wrote:Old time remedy to get rid of mold - set an open bowl of vinegar in the case and leave it there for a couple days with the lid closed. Worked great for me with a nice old trunk that was terribly moldy. Cliff

Good to know. It's hard sometimes to get rid of that "antique shop smell".

You can clean these cylinders and play them, and you will be surprised what you hear. If after cleaning, no matter how bad they look, if you can hear any audio DO NOT SHAVE THEM!!! Use labtone and tepid distilled water. Some do look poor, however you would be surprised what can be done. You have a dish with labtone and water de ionized(distilled), and another with just distilled water (de-ionized), you take a few cotton balls and soak them in the labtone and water and then scrub the cylinder in the direction of the grooves, disposing of each cotton ball, and do not re-dip, but discard each. Do this over a sink, do not re use drippings. Use a few more cotton balls dipped in the distilled water, again over the sink not re-using any of the cotton balls or dipping contaminated ones in the water again. Then place on some paper towels and let the water bead up, then wipe them off with some disposable cotton wipes (such as factories have to wipe of lenses of laser measuring devices.) The photos below are some cleaned cylinders, they may not look very good, but you can hear that one is a home recording and actually quite loud and the other is an Edison cylinder recording of a band selection, yes it is moldly but I can hear sound, so I will not shave them. Phono Boy can attest they were much worse before they were cleaned.

Labtone is an expensive product. Does anyone recommend another recipe for cleaning moldy brown wax cylinders?

I buy and collect a lot of brown wax cylinders. In the past I listed a 2 ounce package of Labtone along with a 4" square polyester velvet cloth and a printed instruction for cleaning wax cylinders for $5.95 plus shipping. If there is enough interest I will make up more kits and realist them on eBay. I usually always Labtone on hand so it's not a problem to make them up.

Rich Gordon

What's in Labtone?