Greetings!
For some time now I have been reading the archives
of this list, getting to know who's here and trying to
learn new things. The amount of knowledge here is vast.
My interest in phonographs is focused mainly on Edison
cylinders, although recently I now find myself building
up an interest in diamond disc machines.
I am 57 years old and worked a good share of years as a
draftsman, all before computers were used. After computers
came in and took that field over, the fun went out of it
for me and I moved on to study electronics and then worked
as a technician for GTE, (later named Verizon).
I have always liked machines of all sorts and mechanical
design work. My life-long phonograph project has been
to be able to make my own brown wax recording blanks
for use on Edison cylinder phonographs. That project
started way back around 1978, when I first started searching
out the patent records for early Edison cylinder recording
methods.
The short version of my story is that since then, I have
successfully gotten my mold working properly to cast
the blanks. I have also worked out the formula for
making the brown wax. That has proven to be a very
labor-intensive process, and there are over a dozen variables
that must all be controlled simultaneously, in order to
end up with a good, quiet, sensitive recording blank.
A large part of this work involves eliminating internal
defects in the castings, so that the blank ends up having
good surfaces available as it is shaved down into.
My website is: http://www.richardslaboratories.com
I invite everyone who has not visited it yet to please
stop by and have a look.
I have done my best to provide as much information as
I can about my overall process that I use to make these
blanks. There are several videos linked from this
site. To see the final reaming, shaving, and testing
of a new blank, please see my "finishing operations"
video. The recording and playback tests are the last
things on that particular video. It runs about 11 minutes.
This is the same testing that each blank gets after it
is made. Every one of these blanks has its serial number
and the date engraved on the title end. They all can
be traced to batch numbers and lot numbers of the raw
materials, as well as the exact conditions when made.
These blanks are for sale. I currently sold out all of
my stock that I brought south with me from Illinois to
Florida when I came south for the winter. There are about
150 more of these blanks stored in Illinois, ready to
be shaved and shipped. By June I will be able to fill
more orders for blanks.
I am not much of a collector, having only one Edison
phonograph. It's Standard model D combination 2/4 machine.
It belonged to my grandfather and he bought it used in
about 1909. I suppose technically it could be said that
I do have a collection of sorts: there are a total
of 4 Dictaphone shaving machines, (3 working, one still
needs fixing), a Dictaphone model 12 that records and plays,
and a Dictaphone Cameo model transcriber that only plays.
The Dictaphone shavers work great for shaving the brown
wax Edison phonograph blanks. The other Dictaphones
work for testing blanks.
I also currently have 6 recorders. 5 of those are
the later Edison "home" recorders that have the .002 inch
thick mica diaphragms and with the cutter and holder
cemented to the diaphragm. Those 5 are all ones
that I have rebuilt myself. The 6th one is a new
automatic that I just picked up at the Orlando show
this January. Have not tried it yet.
Chuck Richards
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