Home recorded disc saga

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In cleaning out my step mother's house I found over a dozen of these discs that my father had recorded around 1950. I remember tht he had a disc recorder in the attic but by the time I was born he had moved on to a Bell reel-to-reel.

Most are of my Dad playing the piano or other amatuer musicians. Some are of my sisters and mother chatting and have great sentimental value.

Before tape recording this was popular for advanced hobbyists. The blank discs are thin aluminum with a smooth coating of laquer. His disc recorder had a very heavy arm with a feed screw underneath. It was probably fed with a 20 watt amp. A cold cutting stylus was used. Most of the discs are 78 but some have sections cut at 33. They all appear to be standard groove but I tried a modern microgroove needle and it was nearly as quiet, meaning the grove is well V shaped.

My first problem is that most of the discs have a serious layer of mold. It was white and waxy feeling, rather than powdery. I tried a number of houshold cleaners on it to see if anything would disolve it. Windex and dish washing soap had minimal effect. (Actually, soap worked but only with a lot of rubbing.) I tried laquer thinner and, as expected, it dissolved the surface. In the end, Windex Multi Surface did a pretty good job of dissolving the mold.

I have a VPI 16, so I coated the records with the Multi Surface, used the brush and then suctioned it off. Two goes with that and then a final rinse with the normal VPI fluid gave a pretty clean and shiney surface. Since they are cut to close to the center the VPI suction brush didn't get to the inside, but I just wiped that section off with a tissue.

I've just begun the process but was able to play a recording of my mother and Uncle Russell (both dead since the 70s), my Grandmother and my sisters as todlers.

Eventually I'll attach a wave file or two.

Regards,
David
 

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