Re: [ARSCLIST] looking for advice on cylinders

["Dr. Cheryl Thurber" <cthurb@xxxxxxxxx>]

Make sure the belt for the cylinder machine has the
right tension. That is often the problem with
irregular speed.

Difference in appearance after playing. Often the disc
is dirty and the stylus is cleaning out the grunge
film. Do brush off the stylus between plays. 

What's the point in cleaning and cataloging if no one
listens to them? Your listening to them gives you a
greater appreciation and understanding of them.


--- Trey Bunn <treybunn2@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Hello everyone.  Apologies in advance for the length
> of this post, but I'm kind of feeling my way around
> in
> the dark here and am hoping for some good advice
> from
> people who have done this type of work before.
> 
> I'm currently doing an internship at the USC (that's
> east coast, not west coast, y'all...) Music Library.
> 
> My focus is on the preservation of old sound
> recordings, and currently I'm attempting to do
> something with a collection of about 70 cylinders,
> about half of which have mold on them.
> 
> I've done some research and read through this
> listserv's archives, and I've found some info that I
> think I can use.  For cleaning, I plan to use the
> method described here:
>
http://home.earthlink.net/~gnordenstam/RecordCollection/Cleaning.htm
> Does anyone here know if this method is safe on all
> types of cylinders, or just certain ones?  The
> majority of the ones here are the Edison Gold
> Moulded
> cylinders variety, black wax as far as I can tell,
> but
> others are the celluloid kind with the plaster
> cores.
> 
> 
> I'm starting to wonder if I'm approaching this
> project
> completely wrong, though.  The idea so far has been
> to
> catalog the cylinders, clean them up if possible,
> and
> maybe even try to transfer their content to digital
> format.  Is this impractical?
> 
> When I play some of the cylinders on the Edison
> machine we have, I notice that the area on the
> cylinder that has just been played looks
> considerably
> shinier, which makes me think that the stylus is
> cutting into the cylinder and damaging it.  I'm also
> having a hard time getting the player to maintain a
> consistent speed; it often wants to slow down too
> much
> or even stop.  Am I a complete boob for attempting
> to
> play these cylinders, that is, am I just
> contributing
> further to their destruction?  Should I just back
> off
> and be content with cleaning and cataloging them?
> 
> And does anyone know of some sort of manual
> (preferably online) for an Edison machine?  It's the
> Model K one with the combination stylus.  Is there
> some way to adjust the speed?  Is the speed problem
> I'm having a sign of a faulty machine, a dirty
> cylinder, or what we might call operator error
> (e.g.,
> I don't know what I'm doing)?
> 
> Lots of questions.  But it's the only way to learn. 
> I'd appreciate any insight.  Thanks.
> 
> 
> 
> -------------
> Trey Bunn
> Folklife Resource Center
> McKissick Museum
> University of South Carolina
> 
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Dr. Cheryl Thurber email: cthurb@xxxxxxxxx


410-747-5557