Cyanotype is a photographic process developed in the 1840s by John Herschel which typically relies on the photosensitivity of ammonium ferric citrate or ferric ammonium oxalate in conjunction with potassium ferricyanide to create an image made of the pigment prussian blue.
Chemically it represent the photoreduction of an iron(III) di- or tricarboxylic acid salt and subsequent reaction with the ferricyanide or ferrocyanide ion to form ferric ferrocyanide also known as prussian blue.
In it’s classic and most well known form it is usually used for making contact prints either for artistic or technical purposes.
I have spent the last few years investigating improvements to this process to make it suitable both for use with enlargers and in camera photography.
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In late 2021 I began the journey of trying to build my own record lathe to allow me to easily manufacture small runs of individual and experimental records on sustainable materials.
During the course of my build I’ve found the publicly available information on the building of record lathes rather lacking so with this project and it’s documentation I hope to be able to get some useful info out there. The end goal of this project is not just to build a working record lathe, but also to release all it’s associated design files under an open source license.
The overarching goal of the lathe itself it not to reach some form of audiophile perfection but rather to achieve a sound that is “good”.
The current working name for the lathe is “Zeola”.
- “Zea” from the name of the genus of plant that Corn/Maize belong to as it represents both the material a lot of the lathe is made from being printed from PLA plastic and also a material to hopefully cut records in.
- “-ola” from the ending common in early and mid 20th century products related to audio reproduction like “Victrola”, “Pianola” and “Motorola”
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