The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

what is a good use for broken or split or otherwise unplayable cylinders. In the past I have given them to children or enthusiasts just beginning in the hobby. If a 2 minute wax breaks into pieces, I reluctantly throw it in the trash. My question, is there a use for these unplayable relics?

A question by a cylinder profane... Could they be heated, melted and re-molded into new blanks? As far as I know by Shawn Borri videos, to make the right cylinder mixture is a hard part of the work. If they can be melted and reused, someone may want them broken..

Could the break area be melted and the broken pieces be put together again (ie, using the melted area as a glue)? If successful, the repaired cylinder could then be shaved for re-use.

[disclosure: I haven't seen a wax cylinder, so I don't know if this idea is practical]

Inigo wrote:A question by a cylinder profane... Could they be heated, melted and re-molded into new blanks? As far as I know by Shawn Borri videos, to make the right cylinder mixture is a hard part of the work. If they can be melted and reused, someone may want them broken..

Brown wax cylinders can be recycled; but black wax is too hard to make a suitable recording blank or to shave..

- Bill

AudioFeline wrote:Could the break area be melted and the broken pieces be put together again (ie, using the melted area as a glue)? If successful, the repaired cylinder could then be shaved for re-use.

[disclosure: I haven't seen a wax cylinder, so I don't know if this idea is practical]

If a cylinder is simply cracked, it is sometimes possible to "glue" the crack back together by applying a hot wire to the interior; this repair is mentioned in early literature, during the brown wax era. With later cylinders, like wax Amberols, this usually does not work.

Cylinders broken into several pieces are even harder to work with; unless it is an extremely valuable and irreplaceable record, it would be more time and trouble than it is worth. There is a fellow known as "The Cylinder Doctor" (I do not recall his real name), who can do wonders with damaged cylinders; but such work is pretty expensive.

As for shaving, see my previous post.

- Bill

I use mine as Christmas tree ornaments!

Lucius1958 wrote:

AudioFeline wrote:Could the break area be melted and the broken pieces be put together again (ie, using the melted area as a glue)? If successful, the repaired cylinder could then be shaved for re-use.

[disclosure: I haven't seen a wax cylinder, so I don't know if this idea is practical]

If a cylinder is simply cracked, it is sometimes possible to "glue" the crack back together by applying a hot wire to the interior; this repair is mentioned in early literature, during the brown wax era. With later cylinders, like wax Amberols, this usually does not work.

Cylinders broken into several pieces are even harder to work with; unless it is an extremely valuable and irreplaceable record, it would be more time and trouble than it is worth. There is a fellow known as "The Cylinder Doctor" (I do not recall his real name), who can do wonders with damaged cylinders; but such work is pretty expensive.

As for shaving, see my previous post.

- Bill

Michael Khanchalian DDS
The Cylinder Doctor
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=30703
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm ... story.html

I once saw an advert for Blue Amberols, with the suggestion that they would make good pen-holders. What concerned me most was that these looked to be playable cylinders in good condition. Some people have no regard for the historical importance and heritage of the items they sell.

I have made a ½ and ½ composition with broken gold molded records, half of my self, made brown wax and half black wax, and it does make a recordable cylinder, I though worry about wearing cutters, but it does work. I have used this to make copies of Gold Moulded records, so they still look authentic. The Cylinder Doctor can put rare and desirable cylinders back together. Yes, smashed brown wax can be made into very nice new blanks too! I saw once a Gold Moulded, beveled title cylinder with a spiral, brown wax core, and never saw another, does anyone have one in their collection. Not to be confused with the normal annular ribs, but the spiral core, like the brown wax, I wonder if that is rare?

This may have been posted here before, a link is provided at the end of my text.

A rather technical video of a conference presentation by Eric Monroe (chemist from the US Library of Congress) discussing the nature of damage to early wax cylinder audio recordings during storage. The research question was essentially "why are some of the wax cylinders stored in the collection found to be broken when they were not broken when originally stored?". He conducted extensive scientific analysis of wax cylinders and experiments with wax formulas to determine factors contributing to long-term damage. This research was limited to early wax cylinders and did not extend to later non-wax cylinders.

He concludes that the materials used to make was cylinders appears to be stable in the long-term, so when cared for they are unlikely to degrade or break. What does contribute to cracking is thermal change. Therefore, preservation of was cylinders requires them to be stored in relatively stable temperature environments. So storage in attics and basements that are likely to have large temperature changes is likely to contribute to increased probability of disks breaking in time.

He was asked about techniques to mend broken wax cylinder pieces. He indicated that there was no technique to do so. He did talk about the IRENE reproducer they are developing, which essentially photographs and measures the groove contour depth and converts to audio. This system has been able to record information on large broken wax fragments, and then to "photographically" stitch these back to the photographs of the large cylinder piece. Currently this only works for large fragments; the technology is evolving so I would hope in the longer term they can recover information from smaller fragments. So unfortunately, there isn't much a general collector can do with broken cylinders at this time.

https://www.loc.gov/item/webcast-7890