The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Would it be possible to ultra sonically clean a cylinder no amberols due to its plaster core but say a wax cylinder with heavy mould growth could be cleaned in a ultrasonic parts cleaner? Or would it break the cylinder? I may try it with a really bad cylinder where nothing would be lost by damage.


Interesting to hear any answers.

Who knows how well it would work, but it you are trying it on a moldy cylinder... go for it. However, no matter how clean it gets, nothing is going to fix the mold damage in the grooves... it will still sound awful..

I tend to agree that ultrasonic cleaning would probably damage the cylinders. Mold on cylinders does not only grow on the cylinder but also eats away at the actual wax of the cylinder. Even if there was, and there isn't, a way to remove heavy mold from a cylinder without any damage to it most of the time the cylinder would play very poorly or not at all. The mold actually eats away the wax surface where the recording was.

Rich Gordon

I was also thinking of using a cylinder that has light hazing of mould where the cylinder is discoloured, I may even try it with some of my early indistructables of which I have only two but they are solid celluloid with no separate core, I wonder how much dirt it will remove.

For cleaning cylinders with a light haze on them I would suggest using Labtone. See my posting at the following link.

http://forum.talkingmachine.info/viewto ... =9&t=30599

Rich Gordon