The Nordskog

A small Santa Monica, CA, company operated this Nordskog phonograph-record cutting lathe during the 1920s. This machine was used to record Ted Ofry's Sunshine Band, an African American jazz band from New Orleans. The recording was the first ever made of jazz artists from the music's birthplace.

The recording procedures were as follows:

STEP 1: Casting of the molten wax and the basic shape of the wax disc which was approximately 11/4" thick. It was with this wax that the actual vibrating needle cut the grooves into the wax,

STEP 2: The recording with the vibrating needle in the wax.

STEP 3: Copper plating the wax through electric conductivity in an agitating suspension-system; this would move the wax back and forth to keep the copper molecules suspended in the solution to give even distribution and in-depth penetration of the copper into the waxed grooves.

STEP 4: Reversing the previous plating operation-the copper disc went through a similar agitating electrolithic operation that plated away nickel to the copper.


More info at this address: http://nordskogpublishing.com/nordskog_arne.shtml