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Vintage Tape (Audio), Cassette, Wire and Magnetic Disc Recorders and Players Open-reel tape recorders, cassette recorders, 8-track players etc.

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Old 5th Jul 2018, 2:33 pm   #21
TonyDuell
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Default Re: Agaphone Wire Recorder

And having tried some more I think this wire is one of the hardest things to handle that I have ever had to bother with. I hope I can get a long enough bit to try some recording, but so far it does not look hopeful...
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Old 5th Jul 2018, 3:51 pm   #22
Trevor
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Default Re: Agaphone Wire Recorder

I have never seen recording wire in real life is it like a guitar string very springy ?
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Old 5th Jul 2018, 5:06 pm   #23
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Default Re: Agaphone Wire Recorder

It is very springy and very thin. It seems to have a magic property of finding anything on the bench to get tangled round as well.
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Old 5th Jul 2018, 7:21 pm   #24
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Default Re: Agaphone Wire Recorder

I have now unwound the spool with the smaller amount of wire on it, and got most of the wire (other than the tangle I dropped) onto strips of cardboard to keep it. Unfortunately it was in lots of short lengths and I hope I can find one long enough to make a meaningful recording.

The wire ends with a non-magnetic string leader (I susepct fishing line could be used for this) which is fitted to a metal clip which fits round the centre of the spool.

It is said you can splice the wire by knotting it (A reef knot is often recommended). The only problems (other than tying knots in this wire, I can assure you that a tuning cord is trivial by comparison) are that the sharp kink in the wire at the knot tends to cause it to break there again amd the free ends coming out of the knot manage to get tangled on anything they can find. I would rather avoid knotting if if I can.

I've not attempted the other spool yet. It really is far too hot to be fiddling with thin wire.. It seems to have at least a dozen ends, none of which will unspool nicely.

How 'generic' is this wire? Would wire for another wire recorder work? What is it made of (a nickel alloy?). Is there a source of suitable wire?

Trevor, if you want a short length of the wire to see what it is like and how painful it is to handle, I can almost certainly spare a bit.
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Old 5th Jul 2018, 10:11 pm   #25
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Default Re: Agaphone Wire Recorder

Would love to see a piece what do you think the average wire speed is?
I cannot believe that you knot it to join length to length I would have thought it would rip the guides and heads to shreds when a knot goes through
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Old 5th Jul 2018, 10:53 pm   #26
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Default Re: Agaphone Wire Recorder

Speed is about two feet per second. Most recording wires are interchangable - the spools are a different matter. I have seen a very late Boosey and Hawkes machine which took both the large hole (Webster?) and small hole (Armour?) spools. And then there were the cassettes.

And yes, splices in wire were done by knotting. Steel tape was brazed or spot welded...makes you yearn for the block and blade.
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Old 6th Jul 2018, 5:05 am   #27
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Default Re: Agaphone Wire Recorder

If all else fails and I can't recover a long enough length to do some useful recording, I will manage to empty the 2 spools I have (one for each spindle of course) and get some other recording wire to wind on. The spools I have a metal with 'AGA' cast into them so they may well be specific to this machine.

Trevor, PM me your address and I'll post you a bit of the wire sometime.
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Old 6th Jul 2018, 10:20 am   #28
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Default Re: Agaphone Wire Recorder

Would it not be possible to measure the diameter of the wire and buy a roll of piano wire of the same size?
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Old 6th Jul 2018, 11:46 am   #29
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Default Re: Agaphone Wire Recorder

That is the sort of thing I need to know. I can trivially measure the diameter of the wire (there's a good micrometer on the same bench as the machine at the moment), but will piano wire work? If there is a common alternative for this wire I am willing to try it. I've still not managed to disentangle the spool with the larger amount of wire on it.

This is my first wire recorder, and while I understand the principles, and the electronics/mechanics are no mystery to me (in other words I understand triodes used as amplifiers, I know what a shaded pole motor is, etc) I have little experience of the actual recording wire.
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Old 6th Jul 2018, 1:20 pm   #30
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Default Re: Agaphone Wire Recorder

I think the The Armor/Wirek used 0.004" dia stainless steel - not sure if that is a piano wire... and it may need heat treatment/normalising... etc
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Old 6th Jul 2018, 4:58 pm   #31
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Default Re: Agaphone Wire Recorder

I'll measure the diameter of the wire I have when I next go to the bench.

Of course there are many 'stainless steels', some of which are not magnetic and thus unsuitable here. And while I can do simple heat treatment of metals, I'd rather not do several hundred feet of wire.

One thought I had is to make at least one more spool so I can experiment with different wires, etc (I have had no success yet in getting a long length from the spool I have). The problem is that there are too many variables at the moment. I think the machine basically works, but I would like to be sure it will record and play from known-good wire before I spend time trying to get it working on some other wire.
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Old 6th Jul 2018, 6:31 pm   #32
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Default Re: Agaphone Wire Recorder

A very interesting if not unusual subject !Guitar wires of course effect magnetic fields
And I would have thought most irons or steel will have some effect
I really do wonder who would today stock such a wire and who would want it ?
Best regards Trev
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Old 6th Jul 2018, 6:50 pm   #33
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Default Re: Agaphone Wire Recorder

It's too hot here to do much serious work, I'm afraid, but possible things to do are :

Make at least one more spool so I can easily experiment with other wires

Try to untangle enough wire from the spool I have to be able to record and play something (after all I am not going to seriously use this machine)

Once I know it works, try some other wires (suggestions?) I obviously want something that can be obtained as a long spool, not just pre-cut lengths (e.g. a guitar string).

Have I bored everyone else yet? I'll shut up if asked....
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Old 7th Jul 2018, 11:35 am   #34
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Default Re: Agaphone Wire Recorder

It's still too hot to do much..

I have cleaned up the casing and put that back on. It may have to come off again if anything needs tweaking inside, but if I am not careful I end up with box after box of screws/knobs/etc on the bench and things never get finished (I am sure you can all relate to that). The machine still works in that spools go round, the amplifier amplifies, etc. But with no wire I can't do much.

I've measured the empty spool in case I decide to make one. It's an odd mix of imperial and metric dimensions. For example the flanges are 1.5mm thick, but the distance between them -- the height of the bit where the wire goes -- is 0.5". The hub on the machine it goes on to is 40.7mm (1.6"). I wonder if that was a defacto standard for some other machine.

The wire measures 3.5 thou in diameter. I am not sure if the heat has affected the accuracy of that though. I suspect too that 4 thou or 0.1mm (3.9 thou) wire would be fine. I don't think piano wire is going to be much use, one website said that while you can do magnetic recording on piano wire, the fidelity is not even good enough for speech. And a friend of mine who plays the piano (very well..) told me the thinnest wire commonly used in pianos is about 29 thou diameter.
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Old 7th Jul 2018, 12:14 pm   #35
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Default Re: Agaphone Wire Recorder

I'd suggest asking the Scientific Wire Company what they'd recommend.
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Old 7th Jul 2018, 12:47 pm   #36
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Default Re: Agaphone Wire Recorder

When at school in the late 1950's a teacher brought in a wire recorder which has stayed in my memory ever since. Never seen another one.

Another possible source. The Crazy Wire company.

https://www.wireandstuff.co.uk/index.html

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Old 7th Jul 2018, 2:50 pm   #37
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Default Re: Agaphone Wire Recorder

I couldn't see anything thin enough (around 0.1mm) at The Crazy Wire Company.

In any case, I'd rather have some wire that is known to work for recording. Trying to debug a machine when you are not sure if the wire is any good is likely to give me a headache. So perhaps carry on with the spool I have and hope I can get it untangled.

I'll take a look at the Scientific Wire Company too. Thanks for the suggestions.
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Old 7th Jul 2018, 5:15 pm   #38
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Default Re: Agaphone Wire Recorder

I am not sure is steel wire is OK but Crazy do have this.
https://www.wireandstuff.co.uk/produ...-AWG--318.html

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Old 7th Jul 2018, 5:31 pm   #39
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Default Re: Agaphone Wire Recorder

Alas not. SS304 stainless steel is the common stainless steel and is non-magnetic. Which means it couldn't possibly be used in a wire recorder.
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Old 7th Jul 2018, 6:25 pm   #40
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Default Re: Agaphone Wire Recorder

Left my suitcase -sized wire recorder in the loft of a rented house in '66 - but I remember the evil wire and the knots required for repairs. The wire was a high-carbon steel about 5 thou diameter (40SWG) with a mind of its own.
Three or four sellers on ebay but USA, so postage is a killer. Search term I used was "wire recorder spool".
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