The Secret Society of Lathe Trolls

trying to improve this acoustic transfer process, the mp3 is playing on my ipad...

found this on ebay for $ 15.00, it arrived today in its original hard carrying case. took about three hours to get the parts broken loose, the machine is 106 years old and was frozen solid. dismantled the machine, lubed and tuned it and to my very great surprise the Machine WORKS !!! lots of fun to ...

built a new driver yesterday, doing some test recordings...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vintage-BSR-1940s-DR33C-AR15-DIRECT-DISC-RECORDING-SYSTEM-78-rpm-record-player/351605208882?_trksid=p2047675.c100010.m2109&_trkparms=aid%3D555012%26algo%3DPW.MBE%26ao%3D2%26asc%3D20140221143405%26meid%3D8be9ca2d8f9a47f0b64b6f2b2bdc5f65%26pid%3D100010%26rk%3D3%26rkt%3D24%26m...

this is transfer from a vinyl disc to a black wax cylinder running at 160 rpm, this is loud, bright and crisp, quite a good recording considering the frequency response of a cylinder is roughly that of a portable cassette tape recorder. the second video is the same cylinder playing through a 14" wit...

actually this is quite slow, normal speed of the cylinder phonograph is 160 rpm, i slowed the machine in order to double the playing time. it was Emile Berliner who first developed the disc record, along with Eldridge r. Johnson, founder of victor talking machines. this is a purely mechanical record...

a napkin ring cylinder...

business is booming, sold five cylinders today so i am staying busy, the last two weeks this has turned into a full time job. lots of orders for Christmas of course but others are taking advantage of the Christmas sale to order cylinder copies and custom work. also bought a new machine for a Christm...

a four minute blue amberol cylinder transferred to a two minute black wax blank at 90 rpm...

a test on a damaged black wax cylinder. i cant use these for anything so i keep them for doing test recordings and experiments...

i have been experimenting with some aluminum foil duct tape, 3 mil thick and 6 bucks a roll, available at the local hardware store. 150 foot roll equals over 100 tinfoil recordings. this makes loud bright crisp recordings with excellent articulation. this is perfect for doing public demonstrations o...

cylinders are selling !!!

just picked this up, found it in kokomo, indiana and drove to get it today, 10 hours round trip. this is an original Dictaphone shaver circa 1930. the machine was frozen solid and would not power up, picked this up for 40 bucks , drove home and had it running as you see it in 2 hours. replaced the b...

i am recording on extra heavy duty kitchen aluminum foil, i applied an adhesive to the foil to stick it to the mandrel, this made a DRAMATIC improvement, it is almost noise free with great articulation, this sounds almost like a wax cylinder, a crisp clear recording. recording on aluminum foil on a ...

this is one of the last Korean cylinders for the Korean project, this is a contemporary recording transferred to black wax recording blank at 160 rpm...

i was curious as to why no one posts videos of their recordings. there are lots of videos of cutting but virtually none of playing back the disc, its easy to do with any webcam and existing software, you tube has a feature to record direct from the webcam with any audio source you wish. i built a we...

the Korean cylinder project is complete so i can get back to experimenting with polymers. this is the first test of a new blank, i color code these to keep track of the experiments. this is all simply trial and error, there is no one to ask and no data of any kind on making an Edison recording blank...

i have slowed the machine to 60 rpm to see what kind of recording it would make, normal speed of the phonograph is 160 rpm. it is very difficult to make a recording this slow due to increasing wow and flutter. at slow speeds the centrifugal governor becomes woefully inefficient, it relies on high rp...

this copper tape just arrived and yielded decent results. copper makes a good distinct recording, not as loud as some of the aluminum i have tried but much less background noise and much longer lasting recordings. if i can find this same tape in 2 1/2" width i will use this for demonstrating the tin...