Chuck and I do not live far apart, and he is a good friend of mine. His blanks are serious business, as far as he documents every small detail that happens in every batch. Every batch is sampled and tested, and each blank comes with a data sheet. As all of us who make blanks, his has a unique sound, as all of us do serious recordist should have on hand Richards, Borri and Morris blanks , and experiment with all our products to see what instruments, our blanks record the best, or what sounds best to you. All new blanks have a very similar formula, stearic acid, lye, aluminum and ceresin wax, as a base, the percentages for each of us is slightly different and some add other components as well. What I think is great about the fact that new blanks are available. Is one you do not have to cut down dictation machine blanks, which were never intended to make a lasting recording (they were designed to take a clear dictation, and be played a few times, and then shaved, after t hey were typed up. ) The Components were similar to a brown wax blank, but not of the best lasting qualities more tempering wax, more oil, and more glycerin and olaic acid than a lasting blank. Ediphone blanks are non toxic, aluminum base but paraffin, and stearic pitch make the recordings short lived. Other brands of dictation machine blanks, may contain lead stearate which can cause heath issues if one shaves enough of them down, and maybe even the swarf coming off of them. Then there are those who like to shave original brown wax cylinders. Some collectors have a low standard of what might be a cylinder not worth saving, and thus because a record may have some mold spots, or noise, then what is the harm for shaving it to make a new recording on? From 1889-1901 less than 8 million brown wax cylinders were made, there is not many of them left, each for the most, part is a unique performance, some true were pantographed but many were by the round. So when is an origi nal brown wax able to be shaved, I can't answer that question, I think if it has a few words that can be heard, leave it be!!!!! Chuck, Paul, and I offer fine blanks, at a reasonable price, and the quality can be superior to original brown wax blanks, as they are made in small quantities, under cleaner conditions, and some of the ingredients actually have improved since the 1890's. _______________________________________________ Phono-L mailing list http://phono-l.org
