View Single Post
Old 17th Jul 2018, 8:52 pm   #52
ricard
Octode
 
ricard's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Lund, Sweden
Posts: 1,631
Default Re: Agaphone Wire Recorder

One could imagine that the detents in the spools are supposed to mate with the ball, or rather, one of them will, in case the friction would not be high enough otherwise.

The thing is, with the Agaphone, the take-up spool providing the drive is identical to the supply spool from the looks of it. The classic wire recorders in the 40's and 50's used a larger, often non-removable, take up spool, often doubling as a grammophone turntable. So perhaps they wanted to ensure that there would be no slippage during record or playback, hence the detents.

I asked a collector friend of mine and he verified that it is the standard Armour spool (as used by Webster-Chicago (Webcor) et al) that is used in the Agaphone. (He wasn't sure about the wire speed though, but that is of no consequence unless you actually want to play back wire recorded on other machines.)
ricard is offline