The Secret Society of Lathe Trolls

I've got that "Command Performance" movie on DVD. Several sellers on ebay sell it, along with a few other interesting movies, such as a tour of the Wurlitzer factory around 1948 showing the manufacture of the famous Wurlitzer 1015 jukebox. The RCA movie is a very good documentary showing how shellac...

I have to wonder if there really is a market for such a thing. Supposedly, these new cutters are marketed at rappers and hiphop DJ's who want to make their own scratch mixes. They are the ones who coined the term "dubplate". I read that term for a long time not having the slightest idea what it mean...

The only way you can keep the spamers from signing up is to not allow automatic signups. Unfortunately that is what it has come to. The spamers have ruined email, now they want to ruin all our forums. Over on Yahoo Groups, I have seen several forums literally shut down because of the spamers invadin...

Yep, those were the cerial box records I was talking about. The later Archie records from the 60's were 33 1/3 rpm. But I also have some Mickey Mouse records that were cut out of Wheaties or Cheerios boxes in the 50's, and those are 78 rpm. Still got them somewhere, I think. Maybe I should try putti...

Send it here:

http://www.west-techservices.com/p2.htm

They can rebuild any cartridge.

Tom

My guess is that cutter was probably designed to cut wax, not lacquer. RCA stuck with wax the longest, well into the 40's.

Tom

Those were also called sound sheets, and they frequently came bound into magazines. You just ripped them out and you usually had to tape them down on a LP record to play them. I even remember them coming on the outside of a cereal box. As I kid, I cut out Mickey Mouse records, and later, an Archie's...

It doesn't sound like a very good plan to me. I think you would be trading wow for rumble. Making a new bronze bushing should be an easy job for any machine shop. Make sure you bring your platter into the machine shop so it can be checked for runout or a bent shaft, that could be a problem too.

Tom

An Edison Diamond disc is no different than any other record of the era, except they are vertically cut. You can play them on a modern turntable with a stereo cartridge by wiring the cartridge for mono, with one channel 180 degrees out of phase with the other. Then the cartridge responds only to ver...

Those type of cartridges use a sapphire tipped shank type needle. They track a little lighter than a Victrola, but still pretty heavy at one or two ounces (not grams!) ouch! The 6N was intended for use in radio stations and would have been used for cutting either 78's or broadcast transcriptions, wh...

Ebay will probably be your best bet, although if you have antique auctions in your area, you might want to try that first. These home type cutters from the 40's generally don't bring a whole lot, and if it needs to be shipped, the shipping will easily outstrip the value of the item being sold. I am ...

There is a short movie produced by RCA Victor called "Command Performance", made in 1938, which goes through the entire process of making records. Its available on DVD from a number of ebay sellers. It starts with the making the wax recording blanks they used in those days, to the recording session ...

Hi, Well it looks like some high quality construction down there. The neatly laced cable bundles almost look like it might have been built for the military. Of course nowadays we would use plastic cable ties to fasten wires together in a bundle, but I used to work with an old technician who said tha...

Rick, With that position you are in, you must get to meet all the famous TV people. Got any interesting stories to tell? I guess I never introduced myself either. My name is Tom Sullivan, I am 59, and live in Dayton Ohio. Unlike a few others here, I am not involved professionally in the recording or...

Probably the closest you will get is the "stomper" type labels intended for CD's. If the 5 inch standard size CD labels are too big, then the 3 inch ones for the pocket size CD's would probably work. The stomper kit comes with software for filling these labels in, and is available at your local Stap...

The Vitaphone system was used by Warner Bros and is probably the most well known of the early sound-on-disk motion picture systems. But all the movie studios were involved in sound-on-disk, including Paramount. The motor should have a nameplate on it telling the speed, voltage, AC or DC, cycles if A...

Just looking at the auction again, I noticed that according to the auction, the lathe did not sell. Did you contact the seller and buy it outside of ebay? How much did you pay for it?

Tom

I think what you have there is an interesting collectors piece, but you have a ways to go before cutting your first record. The main thing is that you didn't get the amplifier with it, so you really don't have a complete recorder yet. I saw that auction while it was still in progress, but steered cl...

The overhead lathe type is the better machine, of course, but the bigger difference will result from the type of cutting head. The pivot arm type tend to have crystal cutting heads. You can expect perhaps AM radio quality out of those. But the biggest problem that any of those you find will require ...

I've only seen one of those AMI's in my life that played 78's. There are lots of them around that play 45's. I think the reason for that is the same as the Seeburg I mentioned above. When 45's took over the popular music scene in the early 50's, all the jukebox manufacturers offered conversion kits ...