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Ive been looking for a 4 minute Edison recorder and havent even found a reference to one. Was one ever offered?

They are extremely rare. By the time the 4 minute records came out, home recording fell out of favor. When they are for sale, they go for big bucks.
Harvey Kravitz

Four minute recorders were offered. Thomas A Edison Inc. put out a 1912 brochure out for recording with it. At the time, many Edison phonographs featured a cygnet horn, and it focuses more on recording with one. I have never been able to afford a four minute recorder, however Peter Dilg told me that with the black blanks, and the delicate stylus, he used one, and only was able to get 10 decent recordings with it, and by the time he got to the 12th blank the cutter was not doing well. With regular brown wax composition, a two minute recorder, can get hundreds of recordings out of the stylus. If making masters it might be possible to use a modern LP cutting stylus tip mounted those run about 100.00 each for the cutting sapphire, and you have to fib and tell them you have a short shank Presto lathe, or Transco will not sell it to you.

What Shawn says is correct.

I'll add a few more of my own ideas about this:

Given the fact that the 4-minute groove is only half
as wide as a 2-minute groove, several differences
manifest themselves with the whole 4-minute format, as
compared to the 2-minute format.

It must be kept in mind that the 4-minute records
right from the very beginning were made of a harder
wax composition than the 2-minute Gold Moulded records
were.

This is in my opinion partially responsible for
the annoying tendency for the black wax Amberol
cylinders to be so delicate and brittle.

Keeping this situation in mind, it can be seen that
right from the very beginning Edison realized that there
was a significant playback wear problem with the 4 minute format. This is why the only practical solution
to this problem came in the form of the Blue Amberol
celluloid and plaster cylinders.

So, if one extrapolates this just a little bit farther,
one can see that the 4-minute format really works
best only when the records are made hard enough to stand
up to many playings.

Trying to have a 4-minute home-recording setup is
very much like trying to squeeze blood out of a turnip.
This is because of the following two contradictory
circumstances:

1) It requires a blank that can be cut with a recorder.

2) It requires a record which is hard enough to stand
being played more than about twice.

I could also list a 3rd item which is that it also
requires a blank which will not wear out and dull the
recorder cutter after about 2 recordings.

Trying to juggle these contradictory items is what
Edison did. He did come out with and did offer the 4-minute recorder and the hard black wax 4 minute recording blanks.

That whole works was a severe compromise, in my humble
opinion.

When one takes a good long look at the whole 2-minute
format, it becomes very obvious that it lends itself
much better to recording and playing back on the
same blank. This is because of the much more robust
groove width and depth it has, as compared to the very
dainty 4 minute groove.

There's only so much work that one can expect a few
tiny hills and dales made of wax to do, without
wearing off. When you cut the groove width in half,
I bet that the unit pressure on those tiny hills and
dales most likely quadruples, and maybe even more.

Squeezing Blood out of a turnip. Even worse than cassettes. (but that is another rant, for another day!)

Maybe you didn't see it but I had a 4-minute recorder listed for sale on the Yankee Trader section of the forum in February. Here is the listing which is now sold.

http://forum.talkingmachine.info/viewto ... er#p174731

Rich Gordon

Well....on second thought..... I think I'll forget the whole 4 minute recording project. Sounds like an uphill climb. I had no idea about all of the issues. I really appreciate the education guys! Thanks

Here are pics of my 4-minute Edison recorder with its original box.

Scott

Phonohound, the question is, have you tried it? It looks like the technical design would make it sound better, as it has rubber dampening instead of cardboard and wax, and the added dome center. what these would be good for, is recording onto a brown wax master cylinder, and then making moulded records from them, rather that wearing out these rare antiques on the original black wax, orange box four minute recording blanks. I have made test blanks of the harder black material (not to be confused with the softer, black, Ediphone, or Dictation machine wax.) And I am hesitant to use them with any recorder I have.

Hi

I bought 6 of these 4 minute cutters many years ago, I retro fitted one into a 2 minute Edison recorder with excellent results using a 2 minute wax blank I bought in the UK.

The cutter does sit a little proud, Gramophoneshane got one from me and adjusted his to the correct height, he also had good results.

I would be happy to sell a few of them.

Cheers Marcel

edisonphonoworks wrote:Phonohound, the question is, have you tried it? It looks like the technical design would make it sound better, as it has rubber dampening instead of cardboard and wax, and the added dome center. what these would be good for, is recording onto a brown wax master cylinder, and then making moulded records from them, rather that wearing out these rare antiques on the original black wax, orange box four minute recording blanks. I have made test blanks of the harder black material (not to be confused with the softer, black, Ediphone, or Dictation machine wax.) And I am hesitant to use them with any recorder I have.

One thing I wonder: is there any difference in diameter between styli on the studio and home recorders? Would the shrinkage in moulding have any significant effect?

Bill