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Question re: manufacture of Blue Amberol cylinders
Posted: Sun Mar 17, 2024 1:42 pm
by drh
I did a bit of looking last night and found a description that indicated Blue Amberols were made by placing a celluloid tube in the mold, then applying heat and expanding it with a balloon or bladder until it pressed into the mold's grooves. After it cooled enough to remove from the mold, the plaster core was added for strength. But how was the celluloid tube made? Was it somehow formed as such? Or formed from a flat sheet with a welded seam that presumably would largely disappear in further processing? Apologies if this has been covered in the forum before; I wouldn't begin to know how to do a search that wouldn't turn up 50-leven pages of random Blue Amberol discussions. Instead, as it's St. Patrick's Day, I'll hope that somebody here can enlighten me and take the excuse to add a
!
Re: Question re: manufacture of Blue Amberol cylinders
Posted: Sun Mar 17, 2024 3:02 pm
by epigramophone
I can't answer your question, but my family roots are Irish and I celebrated St.Patrick's Day by watching John McCormack in his first feature film "Song O' My Heart", released in 1930.
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Re: Question re: manufacture of Blue Amberol cylinders
Posted: Sun Mar 17, 2024 3:35 pm
by recordmaker
Celluloid for this was extruded as a seamless tube for Blue Amberols and most indestructibles, extrusion of the cellulose nitrate is a slightly risky processes and as far as I know when other materials for general purpose plastic tubes became available (well after the cylinder record period) then celluloid was only produced in sheet shaved from a big block . Xylonite was the trade name and was produced by a company called Wardel Storey in the UK into the 1980s they sent me some very camphor smelling samples and declined to make tube for my experiments a the time.
Ron Deathlason,s book on BAs covers most of the post processing at the Edison works where the standard tube was warmed and stretched to the diameter needed for the blank tubes including trimming preforming the title end turn over.
The rubber bladder process means that these are a pressed record. The methods where steam was introduced into he mold ( lambert ) often had problems with water from the condensed steam being trapped between the mould and the record surface.
Lakeside cylinders did use the sheet method and I understand do spilt along the seem occasionally but they are far from common in the UK.
Re: Question re: manufacture of Blue Amberol cylinders
Posted: Sun Mar 17, 2024 3:55 pm
by drh
recordmaker wrote: Sun Mar 17, 2024 3:35 pm
Celluloid for this was extruded as a seamless tube for Blue Amberols and most indestructibles, extrusion of the cellulose nitrate is a slightly risky processes and as far as I know when other materials for general purpose plastic tubes became available (well after the cylinder record period) then celluloid was only produced in sheet shaved from a big block . Xylonite was the trade name and was produced by a company called Wardel Storey in the UK into the 1980s they sent me some very camphor smelling samples and declined to make tube for my experiments a the time.
Ron Deathlason,s book on BAs covers most of the post processing at the Edison works where the standard tube was warmed and stretched to the diameter needed for the blank tubes including trimming preforming the title end turn over.
The rubber bladder process means that these are a pressed record. The methods where steam was introduced into he mold ( lambert ) often had problems with water from the condensed steam being trapped between the mould and the record surface.
Lakeside cylinders did use the sheet method and I understand do spilt along the seem occasionally but they are far from common in the UK.
Thank you for the interesting and helpful information!