Handcrank cutters? Do they exist?

Devoted to discussion of all-acoustic record-playing machines, such as Edison cylinder players, Victrolas, Brunswick Ultonas, and the like. When the Big Blackout happens, this will be the only audio evidence of our civilization (as it is).

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Steve E.
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Handcrank cutters? Do they exist?

Post: # 1025Unread post Steve E.
Sun Feb 18, 2007 10:15 am

buckettovsissors wrote:May sound a little dumb ,but I thought there must be hand cutters too, A grammphone cutter.
Anyone know any models?
Not a dumb question at all, but perhaps a disappointing answer. To the best of my knowledge, cutters in the acoustic era were generally one-of-a-kind machines. It seems a little unlikely as I write this, though. Maybe a better way to say it is that they were made or commissioned by the recording companies that used them, and were proprietary? Hmm! What about people who did field recordings? Where did they get their equipment?

A good question for Peter Dilg. He gave me an answer once, but I'm foggy as I write this.

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emorritt
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Fay recorder

Post: # 1061Unread post emorritt
Tue Feb 27, 2007 6:10 pm

I remember seeing a 'Fay Recorder' a long time ago that was basically a spring driven turntable with an acoustic recorder and horn. I don't remember if there was a feed screw assembly that moved it across the disc, or if it used pre-grooved blanks like those Victor made for their RE series of Electrolas. Don't know if many were made as they're pretty rare today.

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cuttercollector
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Re: Fay recorder

Post: # 6654Unread post cuttercollector
Sat Oct 31, 2009 2:32 pm

emorritt wrote:I remember seeing a 'Fay Recorder' a long time ago that was basically a spring driven turntable with an acoustic recorder and horn. I don't remember if there was a feed screw assembly that moved it across the disc, or if it used pre-grooved blanks like those Victor made for their RE series of Electrolas. Don't know if many were made as they're pretty rare today.
I am in possession of a toy made in the 40s-50s for recording your own discs on your own home phonograph. It is called the Audio-Phonic Home Recording Unit.
It consists of a standard childrens phonograph acoustic reproducer connected to a horn/arm on a pivot on a weighted base. It uses a plastic "tracker disc" that fits over the spindle and has a spiral groove on the top and a boss on the bottom to lock into the drive hole on blank lacquer discs. An offset floating stylus attached to the main horn rides on this and guides the main cutter across the disc. It uses standard home cutting styli and cuts roughly the area of a standard 7" disc.
I have never quite been able to make it cut consistently trackable grooves, but I keep messing with it from time to time.

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emorritt
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Post: # 6655Unread post emorritt
Sat Oct 31, 2009 5:58 pm

The Andy Gard company also had an electric version of the same thing using the tracker disc and a modified battery operated telephone receiver for the cutter. Fidelity wasn't much better than acoustic!

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aidan
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re: Handcrank cutters? Do they exist?

Post: # 14772Unread post aidan
Fri May 06, 2011 9:45 am

so grateful that this site exists. this is my first post.

i have set out on a project to make or acquire a hand crank record cutter that i can record straight onto to make one-off records.

no editing, no perfectionism, no reproduction, no electricity.
pure, simple physical acoustic technology that i could fix with some patience and common sense.

im okay with imperfect crackly sound, but it would be nice to get a full sound if possible

i wont rule out 78s but it would be pretty great if other people could play the recordings on their regular speed modern record players at home.

7' would be fine

using picnic plates or cds would be fine if i cant get the blanks.

basically something that works would be amazing.


thanks to emorritt and cuutercollector for those two suggestions. i would love to know more. i will bring back more research on those soon.

here are some existing spring-wound cutters that i have found so far ...

this english made portable spring-wound 78 recorder (unfortunately the article doesnt mention the brand). i would love to know more because this one looks perfect...
(see next post)

here is a japanese toy one that tomy made. very rare and expensive. but it would do the job nicely.
http://miniorgan.com/lib/tomy-voicecorder.html

this one, the emile berliner gramophone kit made by gakken (japan) is a toy that cuts onto the surface of a cd. the main drawback is that it is poor quality sound and that its pretty unusable as anyone who wants to hear it also needs another identical gramophone to play it back. but the concept is ideal if it were taken further.
http://www.neatstuff.net/records/Gramophone.html
http://makezine.com/pub/tool/Berliner_Gramaphone_Kit_and_Edison_Cylinder_Kit_by_Gakken

i wonder if it would be possible to make one out of a hand crank gramophone by adapting parts from a record cutter (old or new)
(does anyone know if a record cutter head work without electricity?)

using the emile berliner gramophone kit as a prototype, or the one below as a starting point, a fairly simple home made cutter that takes vibrations from a speaker cone that is playing a cd, and transfers the vibrations down a wire, to vibrate the cutting needle.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_-0tNiG15o&feature=related

im thinking that a just a simple mechanism like one of these could be adapted to a a hand crank / pull-string / spring wound record player......

as with the emile berliner gramophone above, this speaker cone could theoretically be replaced by any acoustic pick-up device such as a horn, paper cone, microphone parts such diaphragms or ribbons? or perhaps the speaker cone may actually work really well as an acoustic pick up device instead of an output device for the cd.

with a bit of dreaming, i think that theoretically, it would be possible to get a faint magnetic signal from a micrphone or speaker without amplifying it electronically. if there was a physical way of amplifying the magnetic signal to the cutter head without an amplifyer, it might be possible to get all the benefits out of nice modern microphones and cutter heads without using electricity! I might be going too far, but if anyone knows about this, I would love to know.

ok. thanks everyone for existing.
a[/url]


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markrob
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Post: # 14781Unread post markrob
Fri May 06, 2011 11:37 am

Hi,

The Gakken kit can do this. See this thread for more info.

https://lathetrolls.com/viewtopic.php?t=1807&mforum=lathetrolls

You might be able to start with this an hack some improvements.

Mark

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blacknwhite
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Post: # 14886Unread post blacknwhite
Sat May 14, 2011 1:17 pm

UK Hand-cranked Home Recording Cutter/Player kit (NOT MINE, just posting the link). Apparently, all parts of the kit, including feedscrew & halfnut which clips onto the end of the tone arm, are self-contained in the red case, and it could record both acoustically and electrically (almost like modern "microphone in" vs. "line in"): Amazing!:

- Bob

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUR8NnYmIbI
Image

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aidan
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wind up specialist?

Post: # 16482Unread post aidan
Wed Sep 21, 2011 5:28 pm

is there a wind up dealer / specialist out there?
i would be grateful to be in contact as im very eager to obtain a wind up record cutter.
cheers to you all.

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aidan
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the neophone home recording unit

Post: # 16501Unread post aidan
Mon Sep 26, 2011 6:32 pm


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aidan
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genius!

Post: # 16746Unread post aidan
Sun Oct 16, 2011 6:32 pm

So in my ongoing search looking for a wind up gramophone cutter, I just found this guy Janek Schaefer, who is an awesome audio artist amoungst many things. He made a gramophone lathe out of tape and speakers ... thought Id share it for anyone interested. Note that as it is an intstallation, i couldnt actually hear the result, but the important thing, is that HE ACTUALLY DID IT!

below is a quote of what he wrote on his website:
http://www.audioh.com/releases/skatelp.html
"....I decided then to build my own lathe by converting and inverting the acoustic sound reproduction mechanism of an HMV wind up 78rpm gramophone. Using a car stereo system I positioned a pair of speakers so that they played 'backwards' into the sound funnel and thus ultimately back into the stylus. The stylus then acted as a vibrating cutting head when enough volume was applied. A 14" blank acetate was placed on the turntable and rotated at varying speeds using the gramophone's sprung mechanism. ..."
and a photos here:
http://www.audioh.com/projects/ARS%20presentation%20file/skatepage5.html

Please post any thoughts. I am very curious to know how well this would actually work in reproducing sound on an acetate.

Im thinking in order to really find out I will have to get hold of an HMV and give this a try myself.

Also, any ideas of how to use acoustic amplification instead of electronic? Im thinking the louder the better.

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ArchaicRecords
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Post: # 18383Unread post ArchaicRecords
Mon Feb 27, 2012 12:21 am

Around 1934 a company made steel or aluminum records with silent grooves cut into them. The object was to place the blank silent-grooved metal disk onto a standard horn gramophone. While it was 'playing', using a standard steel playback stylus, you were instructed to shout, sing, or play music as loud as you could into the horn. Then, you would replace the stylus with a cactus needle to play it back. If you were to ever replay the record with a standard steel stylus, you would erase whatever indentations you had made previously.

I actually have a few of these records but haven't played them yet - need to play them with cactus needles on a gramophone.
archaicrecords.com

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Angus McCarthy
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Post: # 18436Unread post Angus McCarthy
Tue Feb 28, 2012 7:43 pm

I think I'm bidding on one of those on eBay right now, actually. I hope a modern cartridge and correctly-sized stylus can track it properly without damaging it, if it is as fragile an impression as you say.
aidan wrote:Also, any ideas of how to use acoustic amplification instead of electronic? I'm thinking the louder the better.
Very long horns, if I recall, were sometimes used to pinpoint and collect sound from each instrument or voice. I would try to bypass the gramophone's horn entirely, if possible - directing sound toward the reproducer takes a different cone shape than amplifying it. Bear in mind the average reproducer was not built to anything near the tolerances of acoustic-era recording heads. Volume would indeed be the name of the game in this case.

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aidan
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Post: # 18449Unread post aidan
Wed Feb 29, 2012 4:29 pm

thanks for those replies. so hope exists! thats very heartening.

any more specifics on the metal blank discs?

im thinking that if i can get hold of some then i would like to try to make imitations from them myself to have a plentiful supply.

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jornibudich
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PATHE LATHE FROM 1912

Post: # 20199Unread post jornibudich
Mon Jun 25, 2012 1:05 am

Hello guys, this is Jorni from Vancouver BC in Canada.
I just got this 1912 Pathe disc recorder a few weeks ago. It works great and running some tests here. It came with a very weak mica recorder.
The machine works great and yeah, an acoustic cutter here. There aren't many acoustic disc recorders still in existence right?..
Haven't find many info about this particular machine but seems to be made for use in language labs at the "Ecoles Internationales" in Paris and made custom by Pathe Freres for them. Any info about this machines highly appreciated! Will try to post some pics soon![/img]
JORNI (Vancouver BC)

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Steve E.
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Post: # 20204Unread post Steve E.
Mon Jun 25, 2012 2:25 pm

Please do post pics!

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Angus McCarthy
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Post: # 20217Unread post Angus McCarthy
Mon Jun 25, 2012 5:32 pm

Oh my god, you've got a real piece of history on your hands, there. :shock:

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blacknwhite
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Post: # 20226Unread post blacknwhite
Tue Jun 26, 2012 12:14 am

Hi Jorni,

Could it be a customized version of this? The "PathePost", which a couple of websites have dated as first being produced in 1908: It presumably was for audio letters and other dictation, and was apparently a vertical / hill-and-dale recording or embossing machine (which makes sense because vertical-cut mono sound was the standard at that time for standard commercial Pathe phonograph discs):

Anyway, whatever you have, Sounds like a fun restoration project & would be cool to see pics,

- Bob

Image

Image

Image

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jornibudich
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Pathe Machine

Post: # 20233Unread post jornibudich
Tue Jun 26, 2012 5:30 pm

Need some help to attach pics from my dektop to post the pics!
Last edited by jornibudich on Tue Jun 26, 2012 6:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
JORNI (Vancouver BC)

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jornibudich
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Here a pic

Post: # 20234Unread post jornibudich
Tue Jun 26, 2012 6:54 pm

Not able to attach my own pics yet but here a link with a machine like mine:
http://flic.kr/p/71aXcv
JORNI (Vancouver BC)

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