i need to cut a edison cylinder. a.s.a.p. so a quick and dirty solution is the only way.
a type d edison baseplate with gear and mandrel from ebay.
the rest is done in my workshop.

the overhead was missing so i did a first generation.
for the halfnut i used a section from a 5mm laboratory banana plug. had exactly the same thread



i use a dc-tacho-motor for the 160 rpm revolution.


the recording media is not clear. at the moment i use grey pp. water pipe with 50mm diameter....

the cutterhead is a custommade vertical head. as you can see the basis for it is a system from a sc-99 head.
i converted to vertical, the stylus i use are the regular saphire neumann stylii kmh-74.


i have to redo the cutterhead suspension. at the moment the cutter does not cut equal groove-depht. so in need a spring suspension, with gravity suspension

after some tests with various suspensions, i came to this solution

of course the cuts are done in the wrong direction. so the sounds has to be played backwards. but its just to find a good way for cutting


and the cylinder looks like this


the grey pp- tube has only 50mm. later i found some other rain-drain pipe tube from the diy shop. with 53 mm diameter
also the cut was still not very good . the off center of the surface was way to big, and another construction had to be done
additionaly i found an original type d carriage on ebay.
i also constructed or better glued together a new cutterhead out of a loudspeaker and a vinylium sc-99 torque tube to hold the stylus.
with this setup i managed to get some nice cuts. see details.




i attached an ir-sensor to be sure i cut exactly 160 rpm



a well recorder cylinder

playing back with a moving coil system

i recorded all the 5 cylinders i made and also the only 2 blue amberolas i have.
the playback cartridge is definitely not very well adjusted, i just taped the cartdrige on the carriage.
but it gives an idea how it sounds.
also the sound is experimental electronics from a well known swiss artist
the surface noise is still quite strong. i guess the best cutting angle and material is not found yet. also stylus is an old saphire....
at the beginning there are the two blue amberolas and then cylinder1,clyinder2,cylinder3,cylinder4 and cylinder5. cylinder5 i did on half speed.

liste to the samples all the cylinders played back with a standard moving magnet pickup




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last update: flo 6.5.2007