Craig's Record Cleaning Concoction

[Craig Maier]

Yes, Edison was ahead of the curve on that aspect of things.

Craig

[Dan McDonald]

Yes, I have a pack of about 30 steel needles, and this was a fresh one. I think these are originals, but they may not be. I see them on ebay quite a bit. My dad sharpens the needles after every play and he gets a very good sound out of them after sharpening, but he may be damaging the records. Of course he only plays something once per year or something like that, and I think the 78s he has are not collectible types.

[Craig Maier]

I am not sure about sharpening lateral cut needles. Perhaps, the initial shape of the cone-tip is critical. If one just sharpens the needle, the shape of the tip is not controlled. But, I am just using my own imagination on this and I really do not know.

Craig

[Dan McDonald]

OK- I've ordered 300 needles now, so I should be in pretty good shape. I'd send my dad 100 of them, but he'd probably keep sharpening them!

[Marc Hildebrant]

OK- I've ordered 300 needles now, so I should be in pretty good shape. I'd send my dad 100 of them, but he'd probably keep sharpening them!

That's a new one for me. I have never heard of sharpening the needles.

The needles need to be "soft" in-order to wear into the specific groove of the record. If you sharpen the needle using a high speed grinding wheel , then you can heat the tip and upon cooling make the steel "harder". That's why the sharpening wheels have water drips onto the metal.

Sharpening will leave steel particles behind also, so a cleaning is needed.


Marc

[Dan McDonald]

I think that's probably what they did back in the day. He's 89 now.
He just uses a little grinding stone, rubs it a few times, and wipes it off with a cloth. The records sound very good still, but I imagine you could get a lot of damage to the record that wouldn't come across in an acoustic playback that might show up with a modern stylus.

[Dan McDonald]

Looks like at least one other person has heard of it. Here's a patent from 1949:

http://www.google.com/patents/US2465442

At the bottom are similar related patents going back to 1917 for needles.

[Craig Maier]

Interesting. Not sure how good this invention actually works, however. Personally, I would stick with fresh needles for my old lateral cut acoustical phonographs/records since new steel needles are so cheap to buy.

Craig