The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

For those of you that think I obsess too much. I have a recorder here that came to me WITHOUT a ski jump. I raided my garage scrap boxes, and found a nice piece of aluminium flashing which I attacked with tin snips. A few crimps, some filing, a little Dremel tool grinding, and filing with a small round file.....and here it is....2.5 hours of work. Part of me is regretting not making it out of copper alloy sheet metal, but I personally like the strength and lightness of the aluminium. The recorder was too perfect for me to NOT do this. Waiting for glue to set so I can test it!!!! Will I be making these in the future.....probably not. Too much work, unless I made a jig and tooling so I could fashion one in 25 minutes at a time. Cutter is from an Edison Standard Speaker.....I never....EVER leave cutters in them. Might be advice to follow, if you actually play valuable brown waxes with a Std Speaker.

Nice job Wyatt. Always nice to bring them back to life.

Rich Gordon

Ski Jump? Never heard that term before.

What is the thickness of the aluminum that you used?

I too have made several of these over the years
and usually I have had to spend a serious amount
of time adjusting it to obtain the best results.

Again, nice-looking work! Please keep us informed
as to how the tests go, using this recorder.

I like your super-fast time estimates too.
The amount of time you describe there is about the
amount of time it takes me to measure everything
and scribe down the lines on the flat copper blank
before cutting and forming.

Nice!!

I see a repro part brewing..

:0)

Tony K.

Edison Collector/Restorer

Repro parts? What? HAHAHAHAH. I don't have the time to undertake that. Yes, I've been calling these ski-jumps for years. In particular, I like the solid aluminium ones used on Graphophone recorders....very nice design.

This aluminium sheet is .017" thick. I had some copper alloy SOMEWHERE.........but can't find it. I like how the aluminium worked out, but It does crack if you bent it too quickly. It records very well......I wouldn't say it is better than the copper alloy sapphire holder.....I'd say the results are the same. Room was about 64*F.....so treble response was a little lacking. I like recording in a nice hot 75*F room, if not hotter. When the wax is that hot, you don't really need to raise your voice at all.....it just records.

.017 is quite on the thick side. As you probably
already realize, the stylus must protrude out far enough
from the end of the formed tube so that the edge
of the formed tube does not touch the blank as the
cutter cuts.

I have used both aluminum and copper.
The copper sheet I have is .005 inch thick.
The original Edison recorder cutter holders are made
from .010 thick copper.

The aluminum I have used is about .004 to .005 thick and
was cut from the side of a Coke can.

You are correct about the aluminum not being nearly
as forgiving of bending and re-bending as the copper is.

I've broken a few of the aluminum attempts along the
way. The last one I did was in copper and it's
on my recorder 289270.

Good work! Sounds like you got it right on the first
attempt. How's the height clearance?