-----Original Message-----
From: Bill Klinger [mailto:klinger@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Sunday, August 8, 2004 07:48 PM
To: ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] edison voicewriter?
On August 5th, Eugene Hertz posted a message to ARSC List, explaining and asking:
Just acquired an edison voicewriter model 74000, its the small gray metal box version ...
I am interested in seeing if I could use this to make transfers of cylinders by using a modern quiet brushless motor. It seems it only has one TPI speed, anyone know what speed it is?
Yes. Edison dictating machines (including the Edison Business Phonographs, Ediphones, and Voicewriters) operate at a fixed, nominal groove pitch of 150 threads per inch or "turns per inch" (TPI).
Unfortunately, that pitch does not suit the vast majority of commercial "entertainment" cylinders. So-called "two-minute" cylinder records have a nominal pitch of 100 TPI, and four-minute cylinders have a nominal pitch of 200 TPI.
You would face a number of technical challenges in adapting your Voicewriter to play entertainment cylinders -- particularly if you wish to produce high-quality "archival" transfers. Frankly, I can't recommend the use of any vintage dictating machine or antique phonograph as a platform for building equipment for use in making high-accuracy transfers.
Consider, for example, that most Ediphones, Voicewriters, and Dictaphones were designed to be used with heavy, rugged, six-inch-long "wax" cylinder blanks that were internally reinforced with cloth fabric (for greater physical strength). Wax entertainment cylinders lack such internal reinforcement and typically have much thinner walls than those of "business" blanks. On some dictating machines, the mandrels were equipped with spring-loaded rib mechanisms, intended to reliably grip the blank dictation cylinder, despite dimensional variations and changes in temperature. These protruding ribs exert forces that might catastrophically shatter a vulnerable entertainment cylinder, such as a weak and brittle Edison Amberol Record (a "wax Amberol").
Eugene continued:
Also, I am very curious about the main lever on the recording/playback head. It seems to have 3 positions, with the middle position being off and not engaging the feed screw.
What are the top and bottom position for? Is one record and one play?
Different brands and models of dictating machines may not share a universal operating scheme, but I can at least tell you that instructions for Ediphones of the mid-1920s directed the operator to "throw the lever back for play ("reproduce"), and forward, to cut a new recording. As you say, the central, midway position of the level is an idle or standby state.
Also, in one of the two operating positions of the lever, there is an odd device that seems to trigger periodically as the cylinder rotates, almost as if it were a metronome tapping the side of the case a few times per revolution, yet the other operating position takes this out. Any thoughts?
Yes, perhaps, but it would be good to discuss the possibilities, by phone. You may call me, any day or evening, at my home phone number, below (in my signature).
And lastly, on the bottom of the head are two push buttons named (L) and (C) it would appear that one would insert a slip of paper under these buttons and perhaps could mark areas of interest corresponding to recorded material. What to the letters L and C denote?
Ediphones of the 1920s employed an erasable celluloid "Index Slip" -- placed in the "Index Holder" of the executive's machine -- to take markings that later conveyed, to the typist, specific "cues" about the dictation contained on a given cylinder. This system continued, but with the use of paper slips, in later installations.
I hope that someone will correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that "L" marked the Length of a letter, so that the typist could plan to appropriately arrange the text on one or more sheets of paper, even before the transcription process was begun. "C" most likely marked a Correction in the oral dictation. These two terms were definitely in use in the 1920s, together with Extra Carbons and Rush.
Steve Smolian mentioned:
There is also info about it in the ARSC Journal's Cylinder issue.
To be more specific, the "Cylinder Issue" was Volume 26, Number 2 (Fall 1995). It had been priced at $18 per copy. However, for a limited time, it can be ordered for just $5, postpaid in the U.S., by starting here:
That issue of the ARSC Journal contains a good overview of cylinder record types and brands. (But it won't tell you much about your dictating machine!)
I hope that this info will be of some help, Eugene. If you wish to discuss cylinder records, or playback methods and equipment, please feel free to give me a call.
Best,
Bill
_______________________________
Bill Klinger
Chair, ARSC Cylinder Subcommittee
13532 Bass Lake Road
Chardon, OH 44024
USA
Telephone: +1 (440) 564-9340