The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Hello! I am new to this board and phonograph collecting as well.

I recently got an Edison Home Phonograph, and was wondering if I could safely play a cracked brown wax cylinder on in just once to hear and record the contents of it. I am mostly concerned that doing this will somehow damage the reproducer, as the crack is more than a hairline.

Should I do it? And if not, if there way to repair the cylinder?

Thanks!

It's not a good idea. Aside from possible damage to the stylus, the edges of the crack will be "hammered" by the stylus and further chipped away. Besides that, sliding it onto the taper will most likely spread the crack and break the cylinder further. There is a guy who repairs cracked cylinders. My understanding is, it's not cheap. So, such repairs are usually reserved for valuable cylinders. Therefore, the conundrum, if you can't play it, how do you know if it's desirable and worth repairing?

Tinfoil.com used to offer a cylinder transfer service. I don't know if it's still available but you could try them. Good luck in any case.

JerryVan wrote: Sun Dec 31, 2023 8:23 am It's not a good idea. Aside from possible damage to the stylus, the edges of the crack will be "hammered" by the stylus and further chipped away. Besides that, sliding it onto the taper will most likely spread the crack and break the cylinder further. There is a guy who repairs cracked cylinders. My understanding is, it's not cheap. So, such repairs are usually reserved for valuable cylinders. Therefore, the conundrum, if you can't play it, how do you know if it's desirable and worth repairing?

Thank you for the warning, although I really wish I'd looked at this thread a day earlier. Just tonight, I played my lone brown wax cylinder on my Edison Standard. It already had a deep crack down one side, and when I played it, the crack spread to the other side of the cylinder. I feel really stupid especially since it is brown wax and could be a unique recording. Granted it hasn't fallen apart yet but I certainly will NOT be playing it any time soon. I hope that other people out there will see this thread so that way nobody makes the same mistake I did tonight.

JerryVan wrote: Sun Dec 31, 2023 8:23 am It's not a good idea. Aside from possible damage to the stylus, the edges of the crack will be "hammered" by the stylus and further chipped away. Besides that, sliding it onto the taper will most likely spread the crack and break the cylinder further. There is a guy who repairs cracked cylinders. My understanding is, it's not cheap. So, such repairs are usually reserved for valuable cylinders. Therefore, the conundrum, if you can't play it, how do you know if it's desirable and worth repairing?

Thank you very much for the information!

I've seen a website that uses a laser without actually touching the cylinder and it plays the brown wax cylinder fine. the video on the website has almost ¼ of the cylinder gone. I'll try to link the website below.
i don't know if the URL will work so just copy paste it into the URL bar.


https://www.endpointaudio.com/endpoint-cylinder-machine