Improvements in Apparatus for Copying Phonograms.
Year: 1898

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION.
Improvements in Apparatus for Copying Phonograms.
I, CARL BOLLÉ, of 57, Barton Arcade, Manchester, in the County of Lancaster,
Consulting Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of this invention which has
been communicated to me by W. Bahre, of 62, Mittenwalderstrasse, Berlin,
in the German Empire, Manufacturer, to be as follows:-
:―
The apparatus for copying or multiplying record cylinders for. phonographs
have the defect that the transfer of the sounds recorded on the original or pattern
cylinder to another cylinder is not always correct, some or even a whole row of con-
secutive sounds being at times missed or indistinctly transferred, so that there are
many waste cylinders. The object of this invention is chiefly to remedy these
defects.
In the usual apparatus for multiplying phonographic cylinders the cylinder
containing the phonogram is pushed firmly upon a mandril fixed upon a guide
screw spindle, which is formed with a thread of the same pitch as the helix on
the cylinder. The touch finger or style transmitting the record is fixed to an
arm, which receives its longitudinal motion directly or indirectly from this guide
screw. To this style the cutting tool is connected in such a manner, that it
cuts the grooves and marks of the pattern cylinder with all its variations into
the new cylinder. But the guide screw and the pattern cylinder have different
co-efficients of expansion, and even if in preparing the pattern cylinder the
pitch of the samé corresponds exactly with the pitch of the thread on the
guide screw, this will scarcely ever be the case when the record of the pattern
cylinder is to be transferred by a copying apparatus to another cylinder. If the
temperature of the room is not exactly the same as that at which the pattern
cylinder was made, the pitches of the spindle and cylinder will no longer be
exactly the same, and the point of the style transmitting the record and guided
in the thread of the cylinder will lag behind or advance and thus a binding
action is produced which when it becomes excessive causes the style to jump
out of the thread it is in and into one of the next threads of the pattern cylinder.
Thereby the transfer of all the sound records on the part of the groove or thread
jumped over is omitted and the new cylinder defective. After a time this will
be repeated again and another omission occur.
Another defect of the usual apparatus, that the copy of the phonogram is
frequently for longer or shorter parts less distinct than the original, is partly
caused by the binding above referred to, but chiefly by the circumstance, that
when the sound marks are cut into the new cylinder, the very fine shavings
flying about enter into the grooves of the pattern cylinder and stick in them and
thus render the exact transfer of the heights and depths of the groove in the
pattern cylinder by the transmitter impossible.
These defects are remedied by my improvement, which consist in arranging the
transmitting style and cutting tool to a common drag lever so that when the
threads of the guide screw and pattern cylinder differ, the style can remain in
the grooves of the latter, and in arranging a partition between the pattern cylinder
and the new cylinder which is cut. A further improvement consists in the

page_text: construction of the cylinder mandril, which renders a rhymering out of the
cylinders unnecessary, such rhymering having up to the present generally been
required in order to set both cylinders exactly opposite each other in the copying
apparatus, and frequently caused them to split, which drawback is obviated by
my improvement.
In carrying out my first improvement I mount as usual two spindles with
mandrils for the phonogram cylinders in suitable bearings parallel with each
other, one of these being cut with the guide screw thread and receiving the
pattern cylinder, while the other carries the mandril for the cylinder to be cut.
A half nut is fixed to an arm of a sleeve sliding on a round bar parallel to the
cylinder spindles, the other end of the sleeve carrying an arm that reaches over
both cylinders and can rest with its other end on a slide bar fixed to the bed-
plate of the machine. This end can be lifted up by a suitably arranged bell-
crank lever or its equivalent. To the side of the arm is fixed a lever fulcrumed
at about its middle and connected at one end by a link to the bellcrank and
bent laterally at the other end, so that when the arm is lifted by the bellcrank
the bent end of the lever is raised. At the outer or sliding end of the arm is
fulcrumed the end of another lever, hereinafter called drag lever, in such a
manner that it can swing in any direction, the free end of this lever resting on
the lateral extension of the other lever. This drag lever carries as near as
possible to its free end the touch style, which is connected to the cutter for
forming the sound marks on the new cylinder in such a manner that both make
the same movement, for instance by fixing the touch style and cutter each to the
end of a separate lever of equal length, these levers being hinged together at
the other ends and fulerumed on lugs of the drag lever. The cutter is as near
as possible to the fulcrum of the drag lever.
When the sliding arm and nut are lowered so that the latter engages with the
thread and the arm rests on the slide bar, the touch style will be lowered into
the helical groove of the pattern cylinder, and when the cylinders are turned,
the new cylinder will be cut correspondingly. If the pitch of the threads on the
guide screw and pattern cylinder vary, the outer end of the drag lever can swing
sideways while the style will remain in the groove and the binding action or
jumping out hereinbefore described will not take place. On the other hand, as
the cutting tool is arranged near to the fulcrum of the drag lever, and the arm
and fulcrum advance longitudinally correspondingly with the nut engaged in
the guide screw, the helical groove cut on the new cylinder will have almost
exactly the same pitch as the guide screw.
The fine shavings or dust resulting from the cutting are prevented from settling
on the pattern cylinder by a partition between them arranged in any suitable way
and made of paper, tinplate or any other suitable material.
As the internal diameters of the phonograph cylinders are rarely the same
but frequently vary considerably while the mandrils have equal diameters, one
of them cannot be pushed as far on to the mandril as the other, in which case
it may not be possible to cut the whole of the phonogram on the new cylinder,
the cutting tool having reached the end of it before the touch style has reached
the end of the pattern cylinder. Hitherto in such cases the tighter cylinder was
rhymered out till both cylinders could be set evenly. By this rhymering cylinders
were often split, which in case it happened to the pattern cylinder caused fre-
quently a very great loss.
To remedy this inconvenience, I make the mandrils for the cylinders adjust-
able in the axial direction of the shafts. Preferably I cut into the end plates
of the hollow mandrils or one of them, a slot starting from the bore and extending
in a circular direction parallel to it, so as to form a tongue having a sufficient
amount of spring in it to grip the shaft tightly, if the bore made somewhat small
or a tight fit. By this means the mandril can be shifted along the shafts or spindle,
but will turn with it, so that instead of setting the cylinders on the mandrils,
the mandrils are set on their spindles, till the ends of the cylinders are opposite

page_text: each other. Other suitable means for adjusting the mandrils on their spindles
may be adopted.
Data
1
Improvements in Apparatus for Copying Phonograms.
I, CARL BOLLÉ, of 57, Barton Arcade, Manchester, in the County of Lancaster,
Consulting Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of this invention which has
been communicated to me by W. Bahre, of 62, Mittenwalderstrasse, Berlin,
in the German Empire, Manufacturer, and in what manner the same is to be
performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following
statement:-
The apparatus for copying or multiplying record cylinders for phonographs
have the defect that the transfer of the sounds recorded on the original or pattern
cylinder to another cylinder is not always correct, some or even a whole row of con-
secutive sounds being at times missed or indistinctly transferred, so that there
are many waste cylinders. The object of this invention is chiefly to remedy
these defects.
In the usual apparatus for multiplying phonographic cylinders the cylinder
containing the phonogram is pushed firmly upon a mandril fixed upon a guide
screw spindle, which is formed with a thread of the same pitch as the helix on
the cylinder. The touch finger or style transmitting the record is fixed to an
arm, which receives its longitudinal motion directly or indirectly from this guide
Screw. To this style the cutting tool is connected in such a manner that it
cuts the grooves and marks of the pattern cylinder with all its variations into
the new cylinder. But the guide screw and the pattern cylinder have different
co-efficients of expansion, and even if in preparing the pattern cylinder the
pitch of the same corresponds exactly with the pitch of the thread on the
guide screw, this will scarcely ever be the case when the record of the pattern
cylinder is to be transferred by a copying apparatus to another cylinder. If the
temperature of the room is not exactly the same as that at which the pattern
cylinder was made, the pitches of the spindle and cylinder will no longer be
exactly the same, and the point of the style transmitting the record and guided
in the thread of the cylinder will lag behind or advance and thus a binding
action is produced which when it becomes excessive causes the style to jump
out of the thread it is in and into one of the next threads of the pattern cylinder.
Thereby the transfer of all the sound records on the part of the groove or thread
jumped over is omitted and the new cylinder defective. After a time this will
be repeated again and another omission occur.
These defects are remedied by my improvements, which consist in arranging
the transmitting style and cutting tool to a common drag lever so that when
the threads of the guide screw and pattern cylinder differ, the style can remain
in the grooves of the latter.
On the drawings appended hereunto the improved reproduction machine is
represented by Figure 1 in plan, and by Figure 2 in elevation.
The machine is mounted on a bed plate A, the guide screw B, on whose end
the mandril 6 for the pattern cylinder W is fixed, receives rotary motion in any
convenient way from a motor, and transmits its rotation through the pulley C
and strap c to the pulley C. This pulley is fixed upon the shaft B¹, on the

page_text: front end of which the mandril 6 is fixed, upon which the new cylinder Wis
pushed to which the records of the pattern cylinder W are to be transferred.
From the guide spindle B the style touching the sound notation on the pattern
cylinder W receives its motion in the axial direction. For this purpose there is
mounted at the side of the guide screw the shaft 1) upon which the bush d can
slide. At one end it carries an arm E, the front end of which has a half nut
with the same thread as the guide screw attached to it and so rests upon the
latter that when the guide screw is rotated the bush d is shifted on the shaft D.
The lower end of the bush & carries the fixed curved arm F passing over both
cylinders W and W1, the free end of which is curved downwards and carries a
small lever f, Fig. 2, which when put down, permits the arm F to rest upon a
slide on the base plate A, so that the movement of the bush d effects a corre-
sponding gradual traverse of the arm F over the entire length of the cylinders W
and W
At the front end of the arm F a lever G hereinafter called drag-lever is so
mounted, that it can move in any direction. This lever G rests in the position
of rest with its free end upon a lateral limb h (Figure 1) of the lever hinged upon
the arm F (Figure 2), the other end of which lever is connected by a link f
to the bellcrank lever f so that when the latter is depressed, the front end of the
lever H is moved downwards and the lever G liberated thereby.
On the lever Gas near as possible to the free end of the same, the touch tool I
is arranged, which is connected to the tool K cutting the sound mark into the
new cylinder W₁ in such a manner for instance, by the levers i and k so that
the tool K transfers each movement of the touch style to the cylinder W.
The cutting tool K is placed as near as possible to the fulcrum of the lever G,
so that the tools I and K work on opposite halves of the cylinders W and W.
If the bellcrank f is turned into the position shown on Figure 2, the outer bent
end of the arm F rests upon the slide on the bedplate A and the touch style I
in the helical groove of the pattern cylinder. When the motor turning the guide
screw B is now started, both cylinders W and W turn at the same speed; the
arm E with the bush d and arm F are traversed correspondingly to the pitch of
the guide screw, so that the style of the touch tool I connected to the lever G
follows the helical groove in the pattern cylinder W and all the marks existing
in the same are transferred by the cutting tool K to the new cylinder. As the
thread in preparing the pattern cylinder was cut corresponding with that of the
guide screw, this transfer at first is effected in such a manner that the lever G
carrying the tools I and K retains its parallel position to the centre line of the
arm F. Very soon however it will appear that the front end of the lever will
depart from this position and the lever G assume a slanted position and lag
behind, and on arrival at the end of the pattern cylinder, the drag lever usually
shows a comparatively very slanting position. This is the consequence of the
unequalities of the pitches of the guide screw and pattern cylinder caused by
As the guide screw B has
the unequal expansion of the two screwed bodies.
made exactly the same number of revolutions as the pattern cylinder, and the
point of the touch tool I has continuously followed the thread of the pattern
cylinder, which has expanded less than the guide screw, as its material has a less
co-efficient of expansion than that of the guide screw, the point of the touch
style necessarily must lag behind relatively to the traverse of the nut, so that ali
the drawbacks above referred to would have resulted, if they were not obviated
by the special construction of the drag lever and the touching and cutting tools
on the same.
As the cutting tool K is fixed to the same drag lever as near as possible to
its fulcrum and as the latter makes exactly the traverse produced by the guide
screw, and the deviation of a point of the drag lever near to its fulcrum from a
perpendicular to the spindle is only small, the sound marks on the pattern cylinder
will be transferred in almost exactly the same pitch as that of the guide screw and
thus be accurately copied.

page_text: Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said inven-
tion and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what I
claim is:-
In an apparatus for copying phonograms, the arrangement of a drag lever
carrying the touch and cutting tools placed with the cutting tool next to the
fulcrum of the drag lever, substantially as herein before described and illustrated
by the drawings.