the rca 11850 cutter

This is where record cutters raise questions about cutting, and trade wisdom and experiment results. We love Scully, Neumann, Presto, & Rek-O-Kut lathes and Wilcox-Gay Recordios (among others). We are excited by the various modern pro and semi-pro systems, too, in production and development. We use strange, extinct disc-based dictation machines. And other stuff, too.

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tomushkas
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Location: Cheshire Ct
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the rca 11850 cutter

Post: # 1193Unread post tomushkas
Tue Apr 17, 2007 2:22 pm

I am a new member and enjoy this group. I started cutting acetates in 1950 on a home made lathe when I was 13 yrs old and didnt stop until 25 years later! As a professional disc cutter I have used a lot of different cutters and lathes, some good, some not so good Anyway, I noted the earlier post concerning the RCA 11850 c/h. I used that during the middle 50's into the mid 60's an my personal (home) machine. With mods,this unit can do a good job. I converted mine to feedback op and it always sounded good. Not as snappy as my Grampian or Cook but not too bad.
I have posted 10 pages from G Sterlings 1950 book "The Radio Manual"
which deal with the RCA 11850 cutter and lathe. This reads like a mini "how to" for disc recording. The file is a zip file around 14 meg so it is a big large but fun to read. The pages are in pdf format.
To access download from www.psidex.com/RCA 11850-73 LATHE.zip

I may bore you all from time to time with exploits from many years of cutting laquer for fun and profit.

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JayDC
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Joined: Sat Jan 13, 2007 5:45 pm
Location: Philadelphia

Post: # 1198Unread post JayDC
Wed Apr 18, 2007 1:33 pm

Hello,
You do have information for the presto 1-C head?.

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tomushkas
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Location: Cheshire Ct
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Post: # 1207Unread post tomushkas
Fri Apr 20, 2007 5:57 pm

Hi JayDC,
No I dont have any data on the Presto 1C. You might check here.
http://www.prestohistory.com/Presto4.html

This is the Presto history page. Alan Graves may be able to help.
Tom

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PyG
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Joined: Thu Mar 29, 2012 11:44 am

Post: # 21068Unread post PyG
Sun Sep 16, 2012 2:09 pm

Hi,
I have this cutterhead, and the document you uploaded is very intersting.
I have not tried the cutterhead yet, because I did not found some informations in the document, and I don't want to damage the cutterhead.

So my questions are:
* What kind of amp should I use? (min and max power?)
* In page 4-5, an impedance compensator is mentionned. Can I use the cutterhead without this compensator or not?

Thanks for your help.

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