Cutting 78's

Hi folks
Been trawling the net trying to find out if there's any way to cut some 78's on shellac
From what I can work out there are a number of collectors who possess some old home use cutters, but getting hold of the shellac blanks may be a problem, unless I find some old records with one blank side
Any help greatly appreciated
Julian
Georgia Wonder
http://www.gwonder.com

As far as I knew, shellac blanks were never cut. I think they were all pressed from negitive stampers, made from the positive wax or acitate masters???
Home radiograms etc, that were capable of cutting a disc, used acitate records.I have some blank acitates, and another blank that has grooves pre-cut into the disc, but I think they recorded magneticly? I dont know anything about the pre-grooved discs really.

This ones an acitate, made in Australia by Byer industries.


And this is a pre-grooved Astromag from germany.

The only pre-grooved recording devices I know of were manufactured by Victor in the 1930's. The few records I've heard made on these machines were horrible - very lousy reproduction. There are still disc cutting machines floating around but they're getting sparse and I don't know how "universal" their cutting lathes were. Finding one in still-working condition might be tough as the mechanics would get frozen up over time. Some used acetate-coated metal discs, others used coated cardboard or paper discs.

So I wonder if there's ANY record I can get made that will actually play on a gramophone?

Acetate would get mangled surely under the weight of an old style needle and arm

You can play acitates acoustically with a special needle called a trailer needle. Still, they would deteriorate because of the weight. They were more for electric pick-ups. It's much simpler, and better results using an Edison cylinder machine and recorder. Here's a couple links to some I've done. They sound much better in person.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jywS4gyEDJQ Kylie Minogue

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjHEFdH-5Vs Eminem

Even the electric pick-ups might be on the heavy side. My grandmother had an old Philco radio / phonograph combo and among the 78s I got from her as a kid was a home recording of my uncles singing a couple tunes. Apparently the record got more than the usual amount of play on the Philco because, between the two sides, only about a minute total is audible anymore. Newer pick-ups, especially from the 1970s, might yield better and less-damaging results.

Play on modern equipment will not harm the acetates.

The pre-grooved ones worked with the RCA Duo system, which just added weight to the playing arm, and fed the speaker output into the biggest pickup cartridge I ever saw. The following is a photo of a recording arm for the pre-grooved discs.

slide-automatic changer

The lever in the middle of the escutcheon on top of the arm selects playback weight, or recording weight.