Wire Recorder

From: John Lawson <jpl15_at_panix.com>
Date: Mon Jan 14 21:43:36 2002

On Mon, 14 Jan 2002 Penna2_at_aol.com wrote:

> Dear Sir

[snippage]

> I also have a 1942 Armour research recorder which I have just finished the
> restoration. It has a wire reel with some interesting recordings on
> it.Unfortunatly also a few breaks and I have not yet found a way of splicing
> wire! I can see why they went to tape.

  Yes, indeed, but from the 30s until tape took hold in the 50s, it was,
apart from record-cutting machines, the only game in town. I have several
wire recorders, used in my audio restoral and recovery efforts. Apart
from very fancy, extremely rare electro-resistive butt-splicers, used
mainly by the big commercial producers of wire product back then, the
accepted (ugly!) way is to tie the smallest, simplest knot in the wire
that you can. If it has become brittle in that spot you may have to snip
some. I have tried various glue combinations with poor results. Make the
knot *small* or it will hang in the head groove and make a bigger mess.

  The last machine I found at a Ham Swapmeet had a spool with a recorded
speech by President Truman to the NAACP in 1950; it turned out to be the
only complete record of a very historic event, and the transcript and a
restored CD of it, as well as the original wire, was donated to the
Library of Congress.

  ALL of this is a bit off-topic for the classiccmp list, so please feel
free to write me off-list for more info, help, repair parts, etc.

   Cheers

John



> Hope to hear from you.
> Yours sincerely
> John Penna
>
>
Received on Mon Jan 14 2002 - 21:43:36 GMT