Mss record cutter Ebay Uk

[studiorp]

Another Mss, totally to rebuild, but good for projects.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vintage-M-S-S-Record-Disc-Cutter-Free-P-P-PL1939-/121882083845?hash=item1c60bd0205:g:xJ0AAOSwGotWr1Rw

[recordboy]

Wow what a mess for so much €

Excuse my ignorance yet what's the deal with the platter? Why is the center dished?

Cheers

[Stevie342000]

Wow what a mess for so much €

Excuse my ignorance yet what's the deal with the platter? Why is the center dished?

Cheers

Erm I beg to differ, this will probably have only one speed 78 RPM of course, as it is pre-long playing disc but this is extremely well made, this is probably the type of deck that MSS sold to the BBC (in 1932-34)to them making there own based on this design.

It is my opinion the MSS made the later BBC cutting lathes as they are essentially a very similar or the same design MSS already had the tooling plus the BBC probably offered the contract to them first. The BBC had a budget too and would have had to pay more to get someone else to make it if they were not already tooled up to do the task.

As for its age I think it is earlier than is suggested in the auction, putting it somewhere between 1930ish to 1946 when the BBC had their own design. I am pretty sure that this is the lathe that Cecil Watts designed for cutting acetate discs something else he was working on it is mentioned in the book written by his wife in about 1970.

Here is a link from BBC information website on the Watts Cutting lathe http://www.bbceng.info/ti/early/Watts%20Disc%20Recording%20Machine.pdf

It's a 3-phase motor and really is over designed, yes it needs work but then the issues are cosmetic, it is complete other than the amplifier to drive the head, my guess based on another that turned up recently is that the head is very high impedance 2500R, there maybe more detail in the above manual on that.

As for the dished platter the simple answer to that is one of two things this is a very early design one of the original lathes, as the platter I think differs to the one in the manual. But the platter is dished because it is missing its top-plate platter. Note that it has an automatic option or manual for cutting discs as well.

As for the price now this is the one that should be near £5,000 and not the AR Sugden which is also on eBay. The pricing in my opinion is more realistic the other way around, as £790 this is a steal and that is the price I would willing pay for a AR Sugden cutting lathe.

It is a highly sophisticated design and is a fine example of British high precision engineering, which is why MSS ended up being taken over by the GPO (Post Office - later to be split out into postal service and BT in the 1980s), in 1946 after WW2 the GPO dropped the organisation and eventually sold it off, they had expanded massively during the war and Cecil Watts found himself as an owner of a company but with no control of its direction due to the GPO take-over at the outbreak of WW2 or during the war.

At the start of the WW2 MSS were based at Kew Bridge they got bombed or one fell close in 1940 air raid so money was secured and they moved out to what is now Heathrow airport area. You got to remember that during the war any company that had engineering ability was used for war service to make parts, output of domestic equipment was little to none everything went into war effort.

That's all I know aside from Watts left in 1954 he had had enough in having no control and was bound over by contract that any invention he came up with that was based on discs either replay or recording would revert to MSS, so he went to run a cafe for a couple of years and then he brought out the Watts Dustbug.

The only other thing is that prior to him moving to the Kew Bridge premises he had done all his development work for the cutting lathe, head and acetate discs over two sites on or near Shaftesbury Avenue where he had a recording studio which doubled as a work shop as well as where he lived. It would have been an early independent studio and was competition to the major label EMI at the time (which had recently been incorporated to from EMI), Decca(UK arm - the US arm was a subsidiary of the UK company)was establishing itself prior to WW2 as the other major label.

His equipment was the best technically at the time and would have cost an arm as well as a leg, there is mention of they never made a profit out of the cutting lathes it could be very well that they are talking about this one or type in the book.

[recordboy]

Great info!!!

& thnx for sharing that pdf

I looked again & have NOOOOO idea why I said what I did about being a mess.
It is quite beautiful rather & has great character.

& someone did get a WONDERFUL deal indeed.

cheers

[Stevie342000]

Great info!!!

& thnx for sharing that pdf

I looked again & have NOOOOO idea why I said what I did about being a mess.
It is quite beautiful rather & has great character.

& someone did get a WONDERFUL deal indeed.

cheers

Yes they did but it was not me, I would kill (kidding) for one of those. There will not be many of those around (even less of them at that price - it was a steal) and it would not be that difficult to modify the overhead to do micro-groove and to get the platter to run at different speeds - these days it is much easier than when this was made. If it is an AC synchronous motor then it is controlled by frequency and if it is a DC motor it is controlled by the volts in.

I suspect that that MSS Cutter came out of the BBC, it looks like the kind of thing they would have in one of their studios. A lot of the lathes like this one and the ones the BBC designed based on the MSS cutter were in use right up to the 1970s or beyond. Over engineered, well made, designed to run 24 hours a day all day everyday.

Anyone know how to grab photos so we can add it to the resources archive?

[recordboy]

I'm on it.

from my personal collection xp

i already took them x)

[recordboy]

&

[recordboy]

& lastly.

there ys go steve.
you know how to copy from here?
ebay made it tricky yet I'm thrifty x)

[Stevie342000]

& lastly.

there ys go steve.
you know how to copy from here?
ebay made it tricky yet I'm thrifty x)

Nice one I do not know how to do that and if you do not know there is always someone that does

Do you think you could go do the same on the AR Sugden?

Thanks take it easy man.

[recordboy]

NP Steve, glad to share indeed

will send in pm to you tomorrow.

cheers

[Stevie342000]

NP Steve, glad to share indeed

will send in pm to you tomorrow.

cheers

No problem thanks.