A BETTER LIFE - The Collectors
Interview of Collectors
A BETTER LIFE - The Collectors
These DIY modifications will make your antique phonographs sound incredible again.
Jack Stanley and Brett Hart reveal a revolutionary method for restoring Edison diamond disc reproducers using coin holders. Their innovative technique transforms the sound quality of century-old phonographs by addressing "reproducer arthritis" and bringing back vibrant audio reproduction that rivals or exceeds the original factory performance.
• Coin holders designed for collecting can be repurposed to revitalize Edison diamond disc reproducers
• The modification requires cutting and fitting the coin holders alongside appropriate gasket material
• Leaving a controlled air leak in the reproducer enhances bass response and works as a tone control
• This technique works on multiple types of Edison reproducers including B, C, H, and K models
• The restored reproducers produce dramatically improved sound quality with enhanced clarity and bass
• Materials needed are inexpensive – approximately $5 for enough coin holders to rebuild multiple reproducers
• Both inventors are available to help collectors attempt this restoration (phonograph78@gmail.com and dyslexicgeniushurt@gmail.com)
• Special tribute to Eric Reiss, author of "The Complete Talking Machine," who recently passed away at age 71
The first words I spoke in the original pornograph, a little piece of practical poetry. Mary had a little lamb. Its feet were white as snow, and everywhere that Mary went the lamb was sure to go.
Speaker 3:Hello everyone and welcome back to A Better Life to Collectors. You see these familiar faces if you watch our podcast jack stanley and brett hart, two of the more well-known people in the antique phonograph world. I have to thank everyone. We've had a great response to our last video. I think we've had over 15 or 1600 views and picked up many subscribers hundreds, actually new subscribers to the podcast. So I thank everybody for that and I urge you, if you like what we do, we have many other things planned.
Speaker 3:Today happens to be a special event. We're following up from something we started talking about our favorite subject or I know it's Jack's favorite subject. It's one of my favorite subjects and Brett has a billion videos about Edison diamond discs. And today, specifically regarding the reproducers, as we all know, diamonds are very expensive. If you've seen Wyatt Marcus's emails and things and Facebook posts about his exploration of replacing the stylus on these things, this is very expensive. The machines go for not that much money, but the reproducers do, which is an interesting part of this. So these two gentlemen have been working on making something that probably Edison over-engineered to the fullest to making them even better than they've been, and I'll turn it over to one of these gentlemen to begin the conversation about these magnificent producers.
Speaker 4:I was thinking maybe I'll go from the beginning of this and then I want to hand it over to Brett. About a year ago I started getting re-involved in Reproducers again. I had done it in the 1990s and I kind of left it alone and I was going through one of my old books where I kept all the stuff and I said I wonder what might work now, because it was this was 20 some odd years later and I collect coins and one of the things that you have coins in is one of these. It's what we call a Pod. You put a coin in or a capsule, and inside the capsule are coin holders which can be of any different size. You can pull these things apart and make it fit whatever type of coin you have. And so I thought about it and I said what would happen if we used one of these or the parts of this in a reproducer, let's say, like for a B or a C for a diamond B or C for an ambrola, which was the first thing I tried and I put it in and I said, holy cow, it was a totally different sound. And then I worked on it some and improved it some and then let it sit. And then I got a disc machine and so I couldn't help myself. I decided to try it on the producer. I put it in and it was like day and night.
Speaker 4:The old diaphragms they get hard, they don't bend, they don't flex like they did when they were new. Let's just call it reproducer arthritis. And so the thing is that we can whip a little club med into it and take one of these and put it next to one of those tired old diaphragms and let it bounce off of this and it'll vibrate like it hasn't vibrated in a hundred years, and it makes a big difference. And so, working with Brett here, we've been tinkering and talking and experimenting and he's taken it in a totally new direction and so collectively we have co-invented, if you want to use it that way, a whole new way to make your reproducer come alive. And these are coin holders Craziest thing you'd ever think of. But the thing that I want to share is there's so much more to talk about, and let Brett take over from here.
Speaker 2:Jack sent me some coin holders and I said oh hey, that'd be really cool. So I started playing around. I had a Junker diamond disc reproducer. I got a nickel top and a gold weight and the screws aren't right and I just put it together and started playing. So you see the reproducer body.
Speaker 2:Move it to the right a little there, you go yeah, and then next is the gasket material and I cut it. So I laid it in, and then I cut it in half, and then I cut out another section here, so it will all fit into the reproducer body. So then I put that in, then I put that in.
Speaker 3:Then I put that's the gasket, the red there, that's gasket.
Speaker 2:The red gasket here is for a C. This is a number two. Okay, and I put one in on a customer's machine. I just did on a C and an H. It worked wonderfully. Machine I just did on a CNNH, it worked wonderfully. So you just put this in so it fills in. Then you put in the diaphragm, Then you put in the retaining ring and you screw that down very lightly and then you blow at the back of the reproducer doing a blow test and then you undo the ring until you have an air leak and then Jack can go more into that. It worked great on the C. When I did the C here the customer came in and I asked Brian, I go or lives by me? And I go, Brian, can I experiment on your reproducers? And he says sure, and I have videos on all that.
Speaker 3:Who's going to say no to you, Brett?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I go okay. So I have one video that's playing. I think it's at four minutes. Tonight's video is going to be on the Triumph with the Jack Stanley idea with the gasket material.
Speaker 3:Oh, that should be interesting On your B diamond reproducer.
Speaker 2:On my B diamond reproducer. Wow.
Speaker 4:I'm looking forward to that.
Speaker 2:I don't have air leak on it and it just like pounds. So that's how you put it. Now I'm experimenting with drilling holes in the weight. Some people told me it wouldn't work, but on a Brunswick the Altona Reproducer just floats on top. If you have a three-head one and you throw out the diamond disc, it's very light and I said, okay, let's just drill some holes in this thing, and that's what I've done. I have videos of doing the reproducer Any questions?
Speaker 3:Probably a million. But so the red gasket part, what is that from? That's just a regular gasket.
Speaker 2:This is from a Victoror number two reproducer. This is the material they have, and it's spongy like the white stuff. I found out that this was too thick, so then I took a number two, I cut it and then put it in here, and you do it the same way as a diamond disc. Sound was unbelievable. I I couldn't believe it. Even Cheryl was impressed. But this will work on any Edison reproducer. Really yeah.
Speaker 3:You could do it to an O, do it to an opera. Yeah, I don't know what's on my Triumph. I think what's the one that goes back and forth from four to two. Don't I sound stupid? Is that an H or a K A?
Speaker 4:K.
Speaker 2:Yeah, probably have a K, unless you have a big carriage. That'll be the O, I think. No, I think it's a K, okay. Yeah you can do it to a K.
Speaker 4:Now, just to add to this Take it apart.
Speaker 4:I just read number two, gasket material. And to add to what Brett was talking about, which is very important, is when you rebuild your reproducer and use these rings, which you have to take two of these rings, you have to cut them and fit them together to make a ring on the diamond disc producer, the one thing that you want is not to have an airtight environment. Now, that goes against everything. Okay, if you think about it, because when we deal with a Victor or with a Brunswick, as you were just talking about, you want to make it as airtight as possible, but with the coin holders and going with the diaphragm, as it's bouncing, which it'll be above it, I should say the looser that ring is, the more base you get. Now the highs are there, but you can more or less use it like a tone control and as you make it tighter, as long as you still have a bit of an air leak, as soon as you get rid of that air leak, it's a very different sound. It's good, but it improves with a little bit of air. It's like a carburetor car. It seems like you get a little bit of air in there and whatever, and it works a lot better.
Speaker 4:And I've been playing with this now for a year now, tinkering back and forth on this, and this is the time to really start sharing this so people can take advantage of it. And even with new diaphragms you can use this slightly different, because if you use a new type of diaphragm, you put into the diamond disc reproducer the ring first this corn holder, coin holder Then you put the new diaphragm and then you put a flat rubber ring around and then you put the retainer and the screw on thing and it'll blow you away. I did it and I couldn't believe the sound I got out of it. So it's really quite an amazing thing and so we want to share it with people so you can take your reproducer and fix it and then all of a sudden have sound you had never, ever heard, because these things will sound like when they were new.
Speaker 2:I have a video of me doing Brian's. He had a two four-minute change at home and I did the C and he always had. This is an Edison recording. His voice was totally different when I did the C with the number two gasket material and I was like holy crap.
Speaker 3:And the key is not to put it all the way around.
Speaker 4:No, you want to put it. What do you mean all the way around? You mean just on one side.
Speaker 3:You leave a gap where there's an air leak.
Speaker 2:The air leak comes from loosening the retaining ring.
Speaker 3:Oh, so the red one you showed me that wasn't completed because that red wasn't all the way around you Is that correct, right, okay gasket material.
Speaker 2:It's this little foamy red stuff. I'm getting it off eBay for cheap Three bucks for everything and then I just plugged it in to see if this works. This was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed doing this. This was like really fun.
Speaker 3:It sounds revolutionary, right.
Speaker 2:Oh yes, I know autograph people would roll over their graves if you were talking about this.
Speaker 3:You spend so much restoring thing to its original condition and then you find this little hack that makes it sound better than the original.
Speaker 4:And it's amazing when you think of it, these coin holders you can buy like 20 of them, like for $5. And the interesting thing is also you can use it in different types of reproducers, because you keep having different size pieces here. It's really a an interesting thing. It's just fascinating. I like I've always tried to take every type of material and see what happens. I even took a hair thing I don't know what you want to call it A hair tie that's rubberized, and I put it in a reproducer to see what happened.
Speaker 1:And it worked.
Speaker 4:Not like the coin holders.
Speaker 3:How reminiscent is that when Edison was trying to figure out what the filament was going to be for his light bulb, he tried everything. He took a hair from somebody's beard right, he did everything. He took a hair from somebody's beard right, he did everything oh yeah trying to figure it out until he decided to take the air out of the bulb right yeah, they even did a contest.
Speaker 4:Everyone took a hair out of their head and they wanted to see whose hair lasted the longest. Their experiments, they're experiments.
Speaker 3:His brilliance is his ability not to be cemented in what you think it should be.
Speaker 4:That's the thing. That's really important is that the spirit of Edison, the ideas of Edison, they're still just as good as they were. Then we just changed the toys around a little bit but, like Brecht is totally reinventing the wheel with the weight and whatever and in a sense, with the coin holders, we're totally redesigning and reinventing a part of the reproducer.
Speaker 3:I'm sure Edison's rolling over in his grave saying, oh, we thought of that, it didn't work.
Speaker 4:This is a new type of material. When I was doing this stuff in the 1990s I don't think they even had this kind of stuff. This gushy might have been around, but it certainly wasn't something I saw all the time. It's interesting how something so simple, the old method, keep it simple, stupid right, the KISS method. So I hope people seeing this will take their reproducers apart. Give it a try. Play a little Thomas Edison and tinker and investigate and surprise the living daylights out of yourself by the sound.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I couldn't believe the sound and the clarity out of a 14-inch woodshed on Brian's phone. Wow, it blew me away. It's a lot of fun too to do this.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I guess I'll try it. I'm hesitant to take a reproducer apart because I never have, but I guess I have extra Cs all over the place, so maybe I'll take one of those apart and try one of those.
Speaker 2:There's this guy on YouTube who has videos on how to rebuild a C.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he does, but just because he could do it doesn't mean I could do it. I mean I spoke to you today about so, as I mentioned last time, that I was able to get for almost nothing a diamond disc A250, that I had to drive four hours for, or four and a half hours to go pick up and drag the friend with me and brought it back to my house and the spring's broken and Brett went over with me in detail exactly how to take it out and I'm sitting there looking at it. I have one side I could pick it up, but I can't get the other side out and I'm saying to myself I'm not asking him again, I'm going to. I have to take those two screws out by the pole.
Speaker 2:So that's what I haven't done yet.
Speaker 3:And I'm looking at the screws and they're flathead screws and you're like do you have any tools? And I'm like it's a flathead screwdriver. I have one of those somewhere, I guess.
Speaker 2:Those are the wrong screws.
Speaker 3:I think they're flatheads.
Speaker 2:They're supposed to be square, and one has a point on it because there's a machined line in the handle shaft that goes into the horn and that keeps it aligned. So that one keeps it aligned.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's the one on the bottom, though no that one.
Speaker 1:I'm talking on the top.
Speaker 3:Two at the top are flathead. Those are the ones you were talking about I had to remove, or the one on the post.
Speaker 2:No two at the top. On an Edison diamond disc you have a little handle moves and it's locked into the horn and there's two screws in that horn. They're square, one's pointed and one's flat, and then the slot is to help you align the handle at the top.
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah, so I always tell you I know, I saw the video because I had a Sheridan Is that what it was? One of the other ones, the Sheridan and unfortunately the wood was beyond help. But it hadn't been cranked up and used in 50 years, 75 years. It had been wrapped up and I watched one of your videos about that 50 years, 75 years. It had been wrapped up and I watched one of your videos about that, about if this ain't working, try putting this up. And I did. I loosened those two screws, I moved it up. Of course I stripped them when I went to put them back, but I stripped it at least in the right position. So it worked fine. But I ended up giving it away because I could. The wood was such, in such a bad way, but there's other. But I ended up giving it away because I could. The wood was in such a bad way, but there's other. Hopefully this one I'm going to get right, you will.
Speaker 4:And you'll love the A250. It's a great machine. It really is.
Speaker 3:I know that's why I drove four hours to get it Picked it up in some guy's garage.
Speaker 2:He didn't even know what it was.
Speaker 3:All three of us own one yeah I know that's what I, so I there are two machines. Jack told me to get that's one and what's the other, the, and I own. That was five hours away and the guy wanted like a hundred bucks for. Oh it was a 612, Victor.
Speaker 4:Oh, Victor 16. An Eldor, was that the one?
Speaker 3:No, it's the.
Speaker 4:Oh, the 812, the 812. 812, that's what it is. It's got a wonderful horn. It has the long horn instead of the wide horn, and they stretch the horn out the other way and has great properties on the bass and less on the treble, and so it hides a little bit of the hiss and whatever and adds to the bass.
Speaker 3:it's a really great machine so the three machines jack recommended me to get is an amber, all five, and so did bre, actually A250 and the 812. And when Brett's giving me the tour of his house, there's one corner of his house. All three of those machines are there. They're right next to each other. I'm like, come on, that can't really be. There's one corner of his house is what I'm looking for. That's great.
Speaker 4:I don't have an A12 at this point. I used to have an A12. But when I moved I had to downsize quite a bit. Got rid of it. But, it's a great machine.
Speaker 3:As you're both aware, I've reorganized my entire place to fit all my machines almost in one room. To make more room and basically the more room is to me is to put a table next to the A250 so I can take it apart and lay it out and then work on it.
Speaker 4:So yeah, that room has become the horn emporium. It's amazing, this horn's everywhere.
Speaker 3:I have a hard time passing a good horn. I have a hard time passing a good horn. I always say to myself I've bought a few horns in an auction for $75, three horns, and I already sold one for $300. The one that I needed won. Whenever you're looking for a horn, you see the one you want at auction, but it's always with three or four other horns.
Speaker 3:And you end up buying them all and then you hate to get rid of them because one day you're going to want one, and nothing bothers me more is then having something selling it and then wanting one and have to search for it.
Speaker 4:And you never find one as nice as the one you sold. Yeah, that does happen. I just one thing to mention real quickly, if I could, is if you're doing this experiment with the coin holders, feel free to give me a yell or a question and I'll be happy to help you. I'm on Facebook under my name, jack Stanley, and just send me a message, ask me a question.
Speaker 3:I'll be happy to try to help you and Brett couldn't be more accessible. Yes, you can get to him everywhere by satellite, by anywhere he's rebuilding, so many things.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I just didn't want to open him up to getting questions like crazy. That's all oh he's gonna.
Speaker 3:I had four or five for him today. I can only imagine. Every time I send him a message I say I wonder how many other people, if I've sent him four, how many other people today has reached out to him?
Speaker 2:How many other people today has reached out to him? Not many people have that phone number.
Speaker 4:You can reach me at dyslexicgeniushurt at gmailcom, or for myself, phonograph78 at gmailcom.
Speaker 3:And since we're giving emails out, I'm going to collect 1912 at gmailcom. And since we're giving emails out, I'm going to collect 1912 at gmailcom, which started out as collecting. I had a whole collection of baseball cards from 1912, which I just sold at auction a little while ago and bought phonographs, and that's where it came from and, strangely enough, I'm still collecting things from 1912. Amazing, I'm waiting for you still collecting things from 1912.
Speaker 4:Amazing. I'm waiting for you to have stuff from the Titanic.
Speaker 3:I have the ancestor. I told you that right. My friend's great-grand-uncle and grand-aunt was Isadora and Ida Strauss.
Speaker 3:Ah yeah, they didn't make it. Yeah, they didn't make it, but they chose that. They're famous because they chose if we can't go together, we're gonna die together. Yeah, and that's a matter of fact, I did. I did a podcast with her and since then I've done an. I've become at least talking to the people of the historical society that are involved in the Strauss family. They owned Macy's for 100 years. They were there in the beginning because Macy's, when it first started, was like a strip mall and they owned, I think, the China division. So when it became a real store, they were part owners and owned it for a hundred years before they sold out to William Macy, bill Macy, whatever. And then they started Abraham and Strauss.
Speaker 4:Yeah, his brother was very big in New York City in politics and also working with children's organizations, as I recall, and if you go to Macy's there's a memorial to them inside it right yeah, it's really amazing and my friends.
Speaker 3:Her father is the chairman emeritus of the new york philharmonic wow it's a great resources.
Speaker 3:I've always talked to her about maybe doing a program over there where I would get a few people not me, of course I make a good MC, but beyond that I'm not very useful and a few people talking about historically and doing demonstrations and maybe a display of how it all started. It went from live to recording. We talk about that all the time and that imagine what it was like the first time and we talked about it last time. You're walking past a store and away home from work on payday, you're going to buy a phonograph. You buy a Caruso record who you happen to get with it or cheap and you come home and the first time in your life you hear Caruso and in a way that I enjoy listening to caruso like that.
Speaker 3:I don't need to see dvd or cd. You play that acoustically recorded caruso record and there's some immediacy to it and you have a connection to them because you realize you're on the end of this horn. He was on the end of the other horn. Yeah, it's not like he was in another room. He was standing in front of a horn cutting grooves into something and that became the grooves that you're listening back. Oh yeah.
Speaker 4:It's really fascinating A thing about with Caruso making recordings. Since you couldn't mix the recording, you couldn't adjust the recording. The only way you could do it was the singer had to adjust themselves and so he would have to back up, look up, turn to his side, get out of the way of the orchestra, get back to the horn. It was like it was insane what they had to do to control, because you couldn't sing full voice into the horn so you had to sing up, so it wouldn't what they call blast, as they called it back in those days. So when you hear Caruso, it's really amazing thinking of what he had to do to make those records and not make a mistake from beginning to end.
Speaker 3:A different world. Oh yeah, and artists as well. Caruso was a little different because he was not only the top of his game, he was the game.
Speaker 4:He created it to a degree. Everyone was the game. He created it To a degree. Everyone copies him.
Speaker 3:Now that's right, everybody copies him now Correct. So it's a little bit different, but think of people trying to make themselves famous by recording and it really. It really was a different process. It's similar to the way radio started, I guess, but this was before that and it's never been done before, and here we are still talking about it. Yeah, and we will continue I hope and still trying to make it better.
Speaker 4:I will throw one little piece in here.
Speaker 4:That 100 years from now, long after we're dust in the wind, speak for yourself there's going to be a group of people that are going to be saying let's try this, let's try that, let's experiment, let's see if we can preserve this. Let's try to do. It's going to be far more interesting because there'll be lots more challenges and lots more changes and a lot more different things going on with early recording, and you'll find as many dedicated people then that haven't been born yet as there are now. I really believe that.
Speaker 3:I'm amazed at how many. Like I said, I've been only in it two years. I think there are more young people today than there were two years ago.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:All of a sudden it seems that I see even when I go. So when I go to the Wayne New Jersey show, there's a day before the show that people sell out of the back of their cars and it doesn't cost anything. And I see young people selling machines that they bought or given and have restored and making a couple of hundred bucks and and I see them looking for specific things different machines, different recordings and I say to myself, maybe there is hope.
Speaker 4:I think so. I think we go through hills and valleys. That's the way almost everything works, in a sense, and I think now we're starting to see a lot of young people, first off, that are fascinated with nostalgia Not only with the sound, but I see them dressed up and stuff like that and also a resurgence of a lot of 1920s styles, bands and music. So I think that's going to attract a whole crowd and, just if you think about it, there's a massive amount of people in this hobby right now that are all around the same age. You know, there's a between, let's say, the ages of like 80 to 60, most of us all fall right in there, and you're going to probably see the next batch now. That's getting together.
Speaker 3:Fall is the right word. Expatch, now that's getting together. Fall is the right, fall is the right word. I. I think that a lot of that resurges is due to people like brett.
Speaker 3:Sure they made it available that they don't have to. I don't know who to ask. I remember when I bought my first machine it worked for a while and then it didn't. I didn't know. I found a. I remember when I bought my first machine it worked for a while and then I found a guy on the internet. He was six hours away. I was going to drive up to his place and leave my machine there for him to fix it. But there's these videos that Brett does every 15 minutes that are in incredible detail.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and.
Speaker 3:I watch him do things that I would never try in a million years, but I do learn more, more about how everything works and, as you say all the time, that edison's machines are all over engineered right, how could they be so simplistic? And so we've probably said this a hundred times, but I guess we're going to say it again so simplistic and so sophisticated, all at the same time we're into 2400 videos.
Speaker 2:I knew it was around 25 so what you do is you go to the main page of Dyslexic Genius hit video. That will give you the last video. Then at the top, type in what you're looking for, mostly not by name, like how do I do a spring barrel on a Victor? And it'll give you a number like a Victor 18. I go how to remove a spring from a spring barrel, and then how give you a number like a Victor 18. I go, I had to remove a spring from a spring barrel and then had to pack the spring barrel, had to rebuild the governor All governors are the same, just the balls change.
Speaker 3:Meanwhile I'm looking where can I find somebody that can do it for me. But I appreciate that.
Speaker 4:I try to, but I am 10 thumbs.
Speaker 3:And I know Brett knows the person I'm about to mention. I have a friend who lives very close to me, who's a brilliant scientist, but, believe it or not, and he started collecting, if I tell you, a month ago, two months ago, avi Avi Brett.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 3:I think he's talked to you about Avi. I don't know, I can't think of his last name right now. So he is like an officer at ibm in charge of ai intelligence or something and he saw he bought from joe a victor and he likes everything perfect. He strips everything down and restores everything. He tries gold leafing. He's done all kinds of things. He just redid a whole bunch of tags. He's also bought a lot of machines from I can't think of his name off the top of my head our friend in miami that sells those state of the art oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:So he's bought a lot of things to him but he has a collection of totally restored uh victors and he's been collecting for a couple of months and it's an amazing. He's obsessed with the music and he's obsessed with them perfectly, and he is that other thing that I never would think of doing and that is making everything look like it just came out of the factory. And Brett does that. But he balances that. If things are original, he leaves them original and they're sufficient, but he also gets things that are original but destroyed for lack of a better word and he makes them look brand new so he recovers what they are I've learned a lot.
Speaker 4:I've learned a lot by watching him.
Speaker 3:I've learned all kinds of stuff and I love the fr Friday night concerts, Sunday night concerts, because a lot of times it's the AMG, which is something you're never going to see other than at Brett's house.
Speaker 2:Russo sounds great on that.
Speaker 3:I bet that's a one-of-a-kind thing, as we've talked about in the past, and I like that you go through, and that's what I try to do for my own self is I try to play a different machine every day and there are a couple that I never play, but I try to and I think it's important that you do. If you're going to have it, you need to play it. If you're not going to play it, you should sell it to somebody who will.
Speaker 2:You should try my needle thing Instead of I have a video on it. It not bottoming out the needle, but bringing it out almost as far as you can till it tightens down. Use a soft tone needle sound like a loud tone and it lets the needle flex more in the grooves.
Speaker 3:I haven't tried that, but I will soon as we get done. I was thinking about about it. I, because I reorganize things, I can get to a lot more than I could before and and it's really these are the ideas and the thoughts that every person is doing, everybody's restoring and trying to figure out how to make it sound best, and thank you to both of you for helping that along and, hopefully, this new idea. Whether I'll be able to do it or not, it's a whole other story, but I'm sure I can find someone who can.
Speaker 4:Try it on your diamond disc first, Because it's bigger and it's a lot easier to take apart and put back together. I can even do it okay.
Speaker 3:It's funny, because you mentioned it before we went on the air, or whatever you want to call what this is, and that is that you've been doing research into these producers that you found your notebook back from 1990 yeah, which is 35 years ago.
Speaker 4:yeah, I was going through it's All these notes and stuff like that. You can see what the reproducer and stuff written down. Just tons of information.
Speaker 3:And you've looked at Edison's notes from when he was doing these things and what he was making comments about.
Speaker 4:Yes, yeah, which is fun. It's a rare position that I was given to go through Edison's notes and also his private library, which was really that was fun. I learned a lot of stuff I really didn't want to know about Edison. Actually, in that library he wrote about everything he did in his body. I don't want to know.
Speaker 3:I think that it's just another aspect of this. I just bought a photograph from 1892, is it at auction? That's a picture of it's the music room. The music room Edison's music room, and you were telling me about the photographer who was listed on the bottom.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it was WKL Dixon who was very instrumental in being involved in the motion picture industry. He was the one that did the lion's share of it, to be honest, but also he was involved with making the Black Mariah and also with some recording, and he made the first sound pictures, of which I guess we'll talk about that another time when you get the picture.
Speaker 3:I reposted the video you sent me of the first recorder that was restored at the Skywalker Ranch, believe it or not. Or Soundon, not Skywalker Is that Skywalker Ranch where the industrial, or not? Or Soundin, not Skywalker Is that Skywalker Ranch where the industrial sound and music is. So George Lucas had a part of that too. I saw his name in the credits, and that's to just give you how important these gentlemen are that we're talking about.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, that came from a cylinder that was in three pieces in a cigar box, which is amazing.
Speaker 3:And to all of us, to everybody that's involved in this hobby. This all starts with a couple of guys in a room with some ideas. Yep, as they say, a dollar and a dream, right. So they all start. What if we do this? What if we do that? And just like, the two of you are carrying on that tradition and I thank you both for it- Anytime, thank you. I think we covered a lot of that and I appreciate everyone. Is there anything else anybody would like to mention?
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 3:Okay, yes.
Speaker 4:You wanted to and I thought it would be be, since we all are familiar with Eric Rietz.
Speaker 3:Oh yes.
Speaker 4:He is one of those individuals going back a number of years, wrote his book on how to fix, restore things and repair phonographs back in the day, long before there was an internet, and that book was very handy and we all got to know him and he passed away just the other day. Not that old at all, he was 71 or whatever, but this book was the Complete Talking Machine. Yeah, the Complete Phonograph or something like that.
Speaker 2:The Complete Talking Machine.
Speaker 4:The Complete.
Speaker 2:Talking Machine. I have a signed copy Nice book.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I know it went through a whole bunch of editions where he added stuff. I had the early one. Yeah, that's it, the Complete Talking Machine. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And it's a great book. It really has you really kind of look at all kinds of things at a time I don't know when the first edition is, but at a time when this is a second edition.
Speaker 4:I think the first one came out in the early 80s.
Speaker 2:I think that was my first started out.
Speaker 4:Yeah, likewise.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it says in here 1986.
Speaker 4:It's the first edition. Second edition is 1996.
Speaker 3:Howard that day, yeah. And it says in here, yeah, 1986. 1986, okay, the first edition. The second edition is 1996. And it also happens to mention in here that he was born in 1954. It's a great book. I recommend it to everyone that does these things. It was one of the first books I purchased and, of course, my abilities are limited, so I didn't really get much use for it. I do better with Brett's videos. Having said that, I'm glad we got a chance to mention it. We all stand on the shoulders of giants and he was someone that was well-known by everyone.
Speaker 2:Agreed, I'd never met him.
Speaker 3:I never met him either, but I spoke to him, I think, on Facebook or somewhere, traded emails with him, thoughtful, helpful, and it's a great loss for the hobby. I hate to use the word hobby because it is just.
Speaker 4:But the institution.
Speaker 3:The institution.
Speaker 1:It's almost like a religion, but that's all right.
Speaker 3:We won't go that far, we'll get ourselves in trouble.
Speaker 2:His passion for back when I started a phonograph guy wouldn't teach you how to fix it. Give me the reproducer, I'll rebuild it. 30 bucks I'll give it back to how do you do it. And when he did his book I'd heard heard in California the old school guys. They were all mad because he let all the secrets out. He taught people. And then when we started YouTube I said I'm going to let all the secrets out.
Speaker 4:That's why we do it. That's why we do the way we do things now. That's why we're sharing these things and, brett, good Lord, everything that you share, it's wonderful. I learn more about things just by watching you and finding out what works, what doesn't work, and you know how not to be primitive, pete, and various things that you're working on.
Speaker 2:I thought it was fumble fingers well, I can be.
Speaker 4:I have various forms. I take primitive Pete, 10 thumbs.
Speaker 3:What's the next machine you're going to do there, Brett?
Speaker 2:I'm finishing up my hand painted trike.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, that's a beauty. I don't even know what to say about it. I have trouble looking at it. I'm so envious it's online.
Speaker 2:I had a little problem with the four-minute changer and I fixed all that and I changed some things around but I had it apart together, apart together, and I couldn't figure out why when I tightened down the plunger and the spring and the screw, right I go, it won't move. And I took it apart and then I went oh, the screw's bottoming out. So I put a Victor Governor washer underneath, put it in. Now it moves. And then I use graphite grease instead of sewing machine oil on that because that wears back and forth. And then those two little indentions in the mandrel shaft they wear out. They get just flattened out from click click. So you run a little graphite in there and it makes it run better and it lubes it a lot better. And then the end bearing where it all hooks in, and then you have a two-four-minute changer. It hides that end bearing.
Speaker 2:So I stuck it in sewing machine oil. I pulled it out and I took my Starbucks stopper and I stuck some hooded graphite grease in there because it'll never get oiled again. I look at getting it oiled again. You know you go oh here, oil your farm ground. Nobody's going to pull that all apart. You want to make it so it lasts forever.
Speaker 3:Thank you all, it's always a pleasure. Likewise, I'm always looking for a reason to do podcasts with you too. It makes me seem like I actually know what I'm doing. Thank you again.
Speaker 2:Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3:Thank you to everybody on there. Please subscribe, send any questions. We left all our email addresses and, of course, you can reach out to me on YouTube and I can forward anything.
Speaker 4:And use coin holders.
Speaker 3:Use coin holders or Victor.
Speaker 1:Victor too.
Speaker 3:I have to tell you I can't wait to try one of these, but I will. But I think I'm going to concentrate on my A250 for now.
Speaker 1:Okay, thank you so much bye everybody bye, bye the first words I spoke in the original phonograph, a little piece of practical poetry. Mary had a little lamb. Its feet were quite as slow, and everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go.