EMI MC-4B Lathe Photo.

A spot for keeping track of especially cool (informative, fun) videos, photos, scans and other links about record cutting. (You can post them in other sections. Eventually they may end up here.) NOTE: Please put *Circuits, Schematics and Manuals* in the section with that name.

Moderators: piaptk, tragwag, Steve E., Aussie0zborn

User avatar
Gus
Posts: 223
Joined: Wed Jun 05, 2013 4:38 pm
Location: Athens,Greece

Re: EMI MC-4B Lathe Photo.

Post: # 44419Unread post Gus
Tue Oct 18, 2016 6:15 pm

jesusfwrl wrote:
According to local collective wisdom among fellow trolls, this particular machine has never been seen by anyone in Greece. But, there are also private collectors, that we would not necessarily know about. This means that it is very likely that this machine has nothing to do with Columbia or EMI in Greece.
Dear Jesus, on the book ''The Inventor of Stereo: The life and works of Alan Dower Blumlein'' writes if i understood right this lathe designed for the Columbia...
The Inventor of Stereo -The life and works of Alan Dower Blumlein.jpg
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.

User avatar
Gus
Posts: 223
Joined: Wed Jun 05, 2013 4:38 pm
Location: Athens,Greece

Re: EMI MC-4B Lathe Photo.

Post: # 44420Unread post Gus
Tue Oct 18, 2016 6:45 pm

jesusfwrl wrote: He seems to run a company called "Pleiades". No official website, or blog, and the company is not known in Greece.
Here is:
http://euroelectron.blogspot.gr/

User avatar
Soulbear
Posts: 525
Joined: Tue Nov 04, 2014 11:56 am

Re: EMI MC-4B Lathe Photo.

Post: # 44421Unread post Soulbear
Wed Oct 19, 2016 6:23 am

Hi Gus,
Soulbear wrote: I really must commend you on your Sterling and Most Excellent "Detection & Sleuthing Skills" Sherlock errr.. Jesus Te He!!

And you too Dr Watson errr.. Gus Te He!!

The "Seller" has added another 2 Photo's to the Listing, which I've added to this PDF :-
EMI Lathe Photo's1.pdf
They're similar, just different angles, but you can see a little more of the "Cutterhead Lowering" and "Cutterhead Drive Coil" details. I'm still of the opinion, that this Lathe (If this "Seller" owns it??) ought to be in a Museum.
Regards :wink: :P :D Soulbear
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.

User avatar
greybeard
Posts: 63
Joined: Tue Aug 31, 2010 8:06 pm

Re: EMI MC-4B Lathe Photo.

Post: # 44438Unread post greybeard
Thu Oct 20, 2016 1:21 pm

Hello,

what is offered is the mechanical part, known as the "Hayes Portable" and a Blumlein mono cutterhead fitted to that in the 1930s.

The Hayes Portable in its most common form (in several museums world-wide) was developed in the early 1920s to drive the recording wax below an acoustic cutterhead. Most lathes for acoustic recording used a travelling turntable (rotated while it was shifted sideways by means of the feed screw) beneath a fixed cutterhead, because that was connected with a very short hose to the recording horn or horns. It would not do to have the horns move with the cutterhead across the wax.

In the early 1980s I thoroughly investigated the two "Hayes Portable" machines they had at the archives in Hayes -- one of them was made for puzzle records, i.e. a feedscrew that had a much smaller t.p.i. than normal. Slightly more than 20 years ago I was commissioned by a record company to make acoustic recordings of their lead tenor, and they (we) borrowed (and insured) a Hayes Portable from a museum, had it serviced, and it travelled to Italy with me, waxes, replica horns and acoustic cutterheads. The main problem of the construction was to obtain a correct mesh between the two conical cogwheels transmitting the rotation to the travelling turntable.

Columbia had a much more clockwork-looking lathe in the acoustic period. These mechanical machines were so expensive that electrical recording equipment was just built on to them when it came out -- Western Electric at first, and in Columbia and after the merger in 1931, in EMI, this is what happened. Smaller recording locations had annual or bi-annual visits from travelling recording experts, until there were sufficient Blumlein cutting systems around to permit fixed installations and local recording experts. Some countries had Columbia lathes, others had Hayes Portables, but the Blumlein equipment was the same. I am quite sure that there will be a schedule in the archive at Hayes. On the other hand, this is the field of discographers!

The Blumlein cutterhead was transformer-coupled to the voicecoil, which was one solid turn of copper. It was not a feedback cutterhead, but it had very little distortion. Alas, in the cutterhead offered, the transformer primary coil and the core for the cutterhead is missing (see fig. 4 in the pdf linked to above) -- it does not work at all. This is a grave deficiency. But, obviously, it has symbolic value! You can see one version of the transformer in place in Fig. 3.4 in the Burns book referred to above. It is even more visible in Philip B. Vanderlyn, 'In search of Blumlein: the inventor incognito', JAES Vol. 26, no. 9, p. 662, Fig. 2 (September 1978).

Twenty years ago I would have bid on the lathe nevertheless and would have travelled by car to Greece to pick it up. But today, no. I have a "portable" lathe (with a SAJA synchronous motor) and I am willing to let my horns turn slightly when I make acoustic recordings. Where to make space?

All best, Greybeard

User avatar
Gus
Posts: 223
Joined: Wed Jun 05, 2013 4:38 pm
Location: Athens,Greece

Re: EMI MC-4B Lathe Photo.

Post: # 44440Unread post Gus
Thu Oct 20, 2016 6:14 pm

greybeard wrote:Hello,

what is offered is the mechanical part, known as the "Hayes Portable" and a Blumlein mono cutterhead fitted to that in the 1930s.

The Hayes Portable in its most common form (in several museums world-wide) was developed in the early 1920s to drive the recording wax below an acoustic cutterhead. Most lathes for acoustic recording used a travelling turntable (rotated while it was shifted sideways by means of the feed screw) beneath a fixed cutterhead, because that was connected with a very short hose to the recording horn or horns. It would not do to have the horns move with the cutterhead across the wax.

In the early 1980s I thoroughly investigated the two "Hayes Portable" machines they had at the archives in Hayes -- one of them was made for puzzle records, i.e. a feedscrew that had a much smaller t.p.i. than normal. Slightly more than 20 years ago I was commissioned by a record company to make acoustic recordings of their lead tenor, and they (we) borrowed (and insured) a Hayes Portable from a museum, had it serviced, and it travelled to Italy with me, waxes, replica horns and acoustic cutterheads. The main problem of the construction was to obtain a correct mesh between the two conical cogwheels transmitting the rotation to the travelling turntable.

Columbia had a much more clockwork-looking lathe in the acoustic period. These mechanical machines were so expensive that electrical recording equipment was just built on to them when it came out -- Western Electric at first, and in Columbia and after the merger in 1931, in EMI, this is what happened. Smaller recording locations had annual or bi-annual visits from travelling recording experts, until there were sufficient Blumlein cutting systems around to permit fixed installations and local recording experts. Some countries had Columbia lathes, others had Hayes Portables, but the Blumlein equipment was the same. I am quite sure that there will be a schedule in the archive at Hayes. On the other hand, this is the field of discographers!

The Blumlein cutterhead was transformer-coupled to the voicecoil, which was one solid turn of copper. It was not a feedback cutterhead, but it had very little distortion. Alas, in the cutterhead offered, the transformer primary coil and the core for the cutterhead is missing (see fig. 4 in the pdf linked to above) -- it does not work at all. This is a grave deficiency. But, obviously, it has symbolic value! You can see one version of the transformer in place in Fig. 3.4 in the Burns book referred to above. It is even more visible in Philip B. Vanderlyn, 'In search of Blumlein: the inventor incognito', JAES Vol. 26, no. 9, p. 662, Fig. 2 (September 1978).

Twenty years ago I would have bid on the lathe nevertheless and would have travelled by car to Greece to pick it up. But today, no. I have a "portable" lathe (with a SAJA synchronous motor) and I am willing to let my horns turn slightly when I make acoustic recordings. Where to make space?

All best, Greybeard
Nice post, thanks Greybeard!

User avatar
greybeard
Posts: 63
Joined: Tue Aug 31, 2010 8:06 pm

Re: EMI MC-4B Lathe Photo.

Post: # 44443Unread post greybeard
Fri Oct 21, 2016 4:16 am

I'm sorry; I stupidly wrote "copper" for the one-turn secondary that is the driver for the cutting stylus. A lot of the effort went into reducing the moment of inertia of the components, and Blumlein and Holman chose aluminium, as it is also stated in the Blumlein book.

I posted a few comments on the technical problems with the seller's installation of the cutterhead on the lathe in the 'Classifieds' section.

Best wishes,


Greybeard

User avatar
Gus
Posts: 223
Joined: Wed Jun 05, 2013 4:38 pm
Location: Athens,Greece

Re: EMI MC-4B Lathe Photo.

Post: # 44493Unread post Gus
Mon Oct 24, 2016 2:01 pm

The lathe in action!

[YouTube2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbHBxjFxBbo /YouTube2]

Post Reply