Perfected Phonographs

[edisonphonoworks]

I am including some photos taken of the pre perfected phonographs, these were made by Ezra T. Gilliland, for Thomas Edison . The machines in the photos, are on display at Thomas Edison Historical Park, (formerly Edison National Historic Site) The original 1888 cylinders, of course are Not on display due to the fact they must be kept in a conditioned room to further not degrade. I made duplicates of the formula, it took a long time to test different formulations in the notebooks of Jonas Aylsworth the creator, of the ueful Edison formulae, the perfected soft cylnders. I used two formulations, one is stearic, ceresine beeswax, and another is the previous three plus caranuaba wax, these produced the correct tone and color. My regular blanks are Not these simple wax formulations, but are aluminated soap, much harder. I have done some test however, with the 1888 blank formulations, and for my own curiosity did some durability tests and found they can be played at least 20 or so times, before there is noise bluildup with at GASP regular model C reproducer, is used a regular saphire cutter, and not the 1888 style. The early 87 and 88 machines though used a chisel shaped metal stylus, ad a rounded wire playback stylus, the groov is square!