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Post by klangfix on Apr 5, 2010 16:17:56 GMT -5
I have not received my cylinder blanks yet. I have ordered a couple from UK. I hope they show up this week. Then I will record a song with lyrics in a south swedish dialect written by my grandfather in 1919. I think this will be a suitable song to be recorded.
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Post by klangfix on Mar 19, 2010 13:59:47 GMT -5
Thanks for all the fantastic detailed info. It is wonderful to meet so many experienced phonograph enthusiasts here.
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Post by klangfix on Mar 19, 2010 7:29:31 GMT -5
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Post by klangfix on Mar 19, 2010 7:16:09 GMT -5
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Post by klangfix on Mar 18, 2010 19:21:18 GMT -5
Tonight I captured this with my camera + an extra handheld eyepiece lens: To me it looks like the edge of the stylus is not much higher than the right part holding the stylus needle. Is this really correct? /Björn
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Post by klangfix on Mar 18, 2010 19:15:42 GMT -5
Thanks for all answers. I am certainly learning a lot from you all.
BTW. I have a recorder without any color. Is that a 2M recorder? It looks like the cutter would match my 2M reproducer stylus in thickness.
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Post by klangfix on Mar 18, 2010 17:22:54 GMT -5
I recently bought a H-type 4min reproducer for my Edison standard. However, I am a little doubtful if the stylus is supposed to look like mine. Is there any good picture of how the type H stylus should look like? Is it maybe worn out? Can I sharpen it? I would try to take a photo of it with the microscope at my work.
I have tried it and it plays, but I sense that the tracking is rather bad.
Regards Björn
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Post by klangfix on Mar 16, 2010 10:17:08 GMT -5
I have an Edison standard, on which I intend to experiment by making my own recordings. I have recently bought a recording device to put in the carriage, but it has not yet arrived. I also understand that I need cylinder blanks. Then I have read that there is such a thing as a shaver, to turn the surface clean from an old recording. One person also wrote that it can be difficult to use a shaver on a standard edison, since the motor is not so strong.
Now to my questions:
1. Where do I get the cylinder blanks?
2. Can an old 2M wax cylinder be used for new recordings if it is "shaved" or is it made out of a too hard wax material?
3. Is there an alternative method of using a shaver to turn the surface clean? Would it be possible to use a sharp wood turning chisel and do it by hand?
4. What is the needle width of the standard recorder head? Is it suppose to be recorded as a 2M or 4M. (My machine can do both feed velocities.)
5. Does it exist modern produced cylinder blanks with better performance or material?
6. Is there such a thing as electrical recording heads? I suppose there has been such devices after 1914, after what I have read. But I do not know if these devices only existed at the recording studios.
Yes, that was many questions. I would be very happy for any response. Regards BJörn
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Post by klangfix on Mar 16, 2010 8:50:10 GMT -5
Hi shellophone, You are right about the swelling of the wood. However, one trick is to pre-swell the wood by applying some water to it before using the stain. After the application of water, you can let it dry for some time and then do a little sanding. This could be repeated several times until you see no more swelling. after that the stain can be applied without any noticable swelling. This is actually a recommended method when using "bets" or stain from the product supplier. As you might have seen already, there are some negative sides with using water based colors. The benefit that I see is that it is easy to make quick color changes just by mixing different colors and sometimes whipe of exessive stain with a damp cloth. here is another example of using water colors on clean wood. ackegura.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=gitarrer&action=display&thread=5541&page=1In this case the surface had a three-tone sunburst where each layer of nitrocellulose laquer had a different color. The color was not originally painted on the guitar. Dealing with a scratch damage makes it hard to repaint it without using an airbrush. With water colors you can do gradual staining of the wood and then put a clear coat of laquer on top. It is not perfect, but it gives an acceptable result.
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Post by klangfix on Mar 15, 2010 10:20:10 GMT -5
I have used watercolors on some minor repair work on different guitars etc. If you use watercolors, the surface must be clean and free from any varnish, laquer or oil. The watercolors are in general rather OK, when it comes to aging. I have water color drawings made in the 1930:s that are still OK. However UV light is never good for any type of colors. When using watercolors I mix and blend colors and test it first on a piece of scrap wood. It is important that the scrap wood has the same raw color tone than the object that you intend to touch up. Then there is another type of color that I really do not know the correct english word for. It is a kind of colored dye powder that is mixed with water or alcohol. We call it "bets". I think it is called "stain". You can see the Swedish product specification here: herdins.webdoc.nu/herdins_asp/pdf/be051_sv.pdfThis is the most used watercolor or dye that is used on clean wood, if you want to have the surface in a different color before you treat it with a varnish or laquer. I have used this for instance in this guitar restoration: ackegura.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=gitarrer&action=display&thread=4255 This is easy to apply, but it comes in only a few colors. You have to mix and blend for yourself to get the right brown color shade. In the example with the edison standard, I did not really succeed with only "bets". Then I tryed the water colors, but I was still not satisfied, so I cheated and used a brown felt tipped ink pen. With the pen I managed to draw rather convincing grain stripes into the wood. Even if the new wood also were oak, the striped appearance did partly come from the dye and partly from the aging of the shellack. BTW, the skill of using shellack is a huge area of knowledge which I still not master completely. I am struggling with french polishing some guitar parts right know and I feel that it is really hard to master. On the Edison standard, I did not have to achieve a perfect shiny surface, the important thing was to get a surface that looked similar to the old one and that was far from a grand piano surface. A small warning. First try with a few drops of water on a hidden place to see if something happens with the original laquer. There can be a reaction making the original varnish go pale white. If so, there are methods of reversing this process as well, but I have not tested it myself. If the surface is not entirely free from old paint or varnish, you will have to improvise by using different dye powder mixed to varnish or shellack (depending of what originally was used). Use only very small amounts of dye, otherwise the shellack becomes non-translucent and the surface looks "painted". Apply many thin layers, and remember that shellack itself is rather brown/yellow, so stop the dying before you think the surface is ready. Let the last darkening of the surface be made with the shellack. Always try on a piece of scrap wood first.
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Post by klangfix on Mar 11, 2010 6:19:00 GMT -5
I totally agree with crestonvalleyguy. The acoustic loss from the motor through a rubber belt is greater than with a leather belt. The lifetime for a good rubber belt is around 25 years. Rubber belts have been used for some 50 years on grammophones for the same reason. We do not want the motor to produce rumble to the pickup needle.
I can live with that the rubber belt is not an original part. Some collectors can't. For them it is more important to preserve the original condition of the piece. In that case we should use antique motor oils as well. Oils that had less lubricative effect and shorter lifetime before it hardens. What I mean is that you always have to decide for your self where to draw the line.
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Post by klangfix on Mar 10, 2010 16:38:10 GMT -5
Here is a small clip when it plays a 2 minute cylinder. As you may see I have already installed the gear for the 4 minute drive and, both works allright. Now I am hoping to get my model H reproducer soon. www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJOyEUUEzGs
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Post by klangfix on Mar 9, 2010 19:37:03 GMT -5
Thanks for all advise! Finally it is now running. :-) As you told me, Martin, it was many small things. I had to move the bearings of the governer slightly to get it to rotate completely free. Also I put some oil on the felt brakes. But the most important thing was probably the feed screw and the halfnut force on the feedscrew. For some reason this carriage puts some extra force on the feed screw if the the feed nut bar is mounted straight without any washers. But, if I put a small washer underneath one of the screws, then the carriage finally rest on the straight edge, leaving only a little force on the halfnut. This was obviously not in balance, since the carriage not even touched the straight edge when I got it. BTW, the straight edge was repainted, so any contact would have been a disaster. I removed the paint with 600 grit paper until it was smooth and clean again. Now I am only waiting for my horn replica and my model H reproducer. In the mean time I would like to show you some pictures of how I glued together the upper frame. First I cut a piece of oak in the right width and thickness as the damaged front piece. Then I cut the old and the new pieces at one time to get the angles exactly the same. In this way, you do not have to think about keeping the saw exactly straight in any way. I put both pieces in a vise and then I cut a similar notch in the new piece as in the old. This notch was made a little deeper and acted as a place to glue a hidden enforcement. I made an enforcement piece out of maple that I happen to have. This is actually wood for putting underneath a guitar bridge, so it is really strong. The two pieces were now glued together. Force was applied in two directions. This is how it looked after glueing. Now I had to make the new piece fit the old one. Testing and carving and testing again... Time to glue. Liquid hide glue was used. This has never let me down. I use it on guitars often. After some hand carving and sandpaper work... I used brown dye mixed in water. However the color was not right so I had to touch it up with some water colors. To mask the joint I even used a brown felt tip pen to paint som grain going across the joint. This makes the joint more invisable. After many layers of different paint, I finally painted the whole frame with some shellack. After that the shellack was slightly polished with some very fine steel wool, to take away some of the shiny glossy surface. Done!
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Post by klangfix on Mar 8, 2010 16:22:55 GMT -5
Hi again, Finally I got the reproducer, the belt and cylinders for 2min and 4 min. I also installed the new 2m/4m gear with very careful adjustments of free play and alignments on every axis. I thought everything should be running well, but it seems that there is not enough power to run everything. When I play a 2 min cylinder it stops after only a few seconds.
I have found one thing that puzzles me, and that is related to my first question in this thread; Is the carriage arm really resting on the knife edge during playback? If so, somebody must have tempered with the feed nut bar mounting. It had an extra washer under one of the screws making it tilt a little bit. In this way there was more pressure on the feed screw and none on the front knife edge. Maybe this makes my machine run to heavy.
I have also examined the bearings of the governor and went through all other bearings with tiny drops of oil. The oil that I am using happens to be a special oil for Hammond tone wheel organs. I thought it would do fine. :-)
Any suggestions about the sticky machine?
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Post by klangfix on Mar 4, 2010 11:43:53 GMT -5
Thanks for the detailed info. I will try to get a model H as well. The machine has not yet the 2/4 minute gear installed, but I recently bought a set of gears which I soon will mount. However, I still miss the gear cover and the feed screw cover. I am hoping for some success on ebay.
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