Manufacture 78t discs for use on needle gramophones

[C.B. - Boudio]

There must be equivalent European machines.

It's surprising how there seem to be none left. More upmarket, there was Neumann, but that's about it, it seems. The NIR, the Belgian national broadcast institute, also used Presto's pre and post war, for example. Germany always had tape. I don't know about the Dutch broadcast. I have never heard of a Philips lathe, in any case.
Although in France, you might have had some from Schlumberger? I'm not sure if they were that old.

 

[Bebert81]

Thank you Paul for all this information.

Bebert81: I'm curious what about this style of playback do you find attractive? In general the faster a disc spins the higher the fidelity. 78RPM has the potential to beat 45RPM in sound quality and level. Some microgroove 78RPM LP's from the mid 1950's sound stunningly good.

That said the old gramophone's made to reproduce wide groove shellac records have severely limited frequency response and level capability. On the one hand 78 is hi-fi. On the other hand it is usually lo-fi.

I'm not interested in quality, high fidelity or bandwidth in this project. It's more about evoking the sound of the past but with today's musical composition and particularly give to hear music (acoustic vibration) without electricity and with portability. listening to a shellac record in good condition on a gramophone by the river is a truly gripping experience !

I've been researching this exact project for a while, for use in art installations/happenings.
Constructing a movement to cut one-off playable discs is entirely possible, finding the right material is the next challenge. A promising "modern" compound is polyester resin, which has a "knee" in the hardening curve, setting to a non-liquid state in about 15mins and then progressively hardening over the next 24hrs. Coating a backing disc would involve a vacuum-chamber and a spray-gun.

Great Viggo, I'm not alone. Have you ever tried anything with polyester resin?

If old 78rpm system uses very large grooves, maybe laser engraving or digital milling machine will be precise enough to do the job on a hard material ?