Treating Warped Records

Khalid,

only sad, experimental (but with out a control) tales can I share. i had a copy of "Farewell to Kings" that was mastered by some Canadian outfit and was much superior to the Masterdisc cutting that I had purchased in order to find a flat version. I thought that if I could flatten out the original somehow... first I tried static force, like you did. No luck. Next I turned on the oven and placed it between two pieces of glass and thought if i raised and lowered the temp slowly enough, just maybe... Wow... what a cool shape, completely unplayable now, isn't it?

Good luck. I have not read of one successful method of righting that wrong.

..Except for finding a Japanese copy at the local record store that was priced as a domestic, that is.

I have often wondered of vinyl survival in hot and humid places.

Connon

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Originally posted by connon price:
Next I turned on the oven and placed it between two pieces of glass and thought if i raised and lowered the temp slowly enough, just maybe... Wow... what a cool shape, completely unplayable now, isn't it?

Connon

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Should be a cookin' records !

JM

Connon,

'Farewell to Kings', is that the Rush album? Ironically, my warped record is Rush's '2112' which makes me wonder whether this is prevalent among Rush records.

Sad to hear of your unsuccesful experiments. I was thinking of putting it out in the sun myself. Well, at least now I won't have to waste the effort of trying it out.

I've got one or two more records that are slightly warped but they all play fine. All my other records seemed to have aged well enough. I don't believe the humidity here is detrimental to records. Well, maybe fungus forms more quickly, but warping? Maybe those more experinced posters can shed more light on this.

Thanks

[This message was edited by Khalid on SUNDAY 11 August 2002 at 10:56.]

I've had one attempt at this so far and whilst I got the record flat the side effects were not entirely acceptable...

Vinyl is thermoplastic so heat is the key to deforming it and getting it to set in a new shape. I think the tricky bit is to apply the right amount of heat and pressure for the right amount of time. I used two glass Ikea table tops - the round suspended from above ones and an oven. Unfortunately these are a bit too big to fit in my oven so they had to go in at an angle with the door slightly open. I used too much heat for too long and since they were at an angle, the record flowed downhill and is now slightly teardrop shaped. The top of the grooves are also flattened.

I still think this is the way to (provided the glass is horizontal) but I don't have enough warped records that I am prepared to sacrifice for a full trial and error test. If I do try again I will start at very low temperatures eg 35C and work upwards.

Regards
Steve

Khalid,

You will find that if you put your record between two pieces of thickish glass with an even weight on top, your record will eventually straighten out.

You will have to leave it there for at least 3 months. This is the key.

Do not use any sort of heat. This will ruin the vinyl even if you can't see the damage..

Hi,

I have successfully used a Corby type trouser press to straighten out discs that were unplayable

Regards,
James

Frankly, I'm very amazed at this day and age that people still bother with vinyl. I've given this medium up for good some 20 or so years back with the onset of CD's. Yes, my whole collection of about 400 records. 'Cos I was sick and tired of running back to WH Smith's to have my (new) record changed for another copy each time I bought a record because of minor faults like 'pops' and 'cracks' and warps, etc. etc.

And on the rare occasions that I was happy with my purchases, I was equally fed-up with tip-toeing around my sitting room eack time a vinyl was being played on the turntable and my girlfriend had to be kept in frozen suspension until the record had finished playing. This was to prevent the turntable arm from skating or jumping across the record. What torture!

Of course, now most of these records have been replaced by CD's - what an almighty relief!! Yes, I regret the fact that it is very unlikely that all my past vinyls can be replaced with CD's, especially those early flamenco records from Spain (as it were, these were hard enough to find on vinyl, let alone CD's) but the almost perfect CD's that we have now over the ridiculous vinyls of yesteryear have more than compensate my losses.

Treat him gently - he's new here!

Martin

Tango,

God luv ya!!!!

Ha

Judd

I'm gonna pull his arm off and beat him to death with the soggy end.

Oh my...
I'll be watching this post. Will prove to be better than any US "Professional" Wrestling match!!!
David

Got side tracked with that last one...
OK, I've "saved" one record that was warped with low oven heat and pressure and completly destroyed several others. And the last one was a friend's that he wanted on CD so he and his wife could re-live some memories...
I'm done with that, I don't have the recipe.
I'll try the 3 month pressure thing next time.
David

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Originally posted by Tango:
Frankly, I'm very amazed at this day and age that people still bother with vinyl. I've given this medium up for good some 20 or so years back with the onset of CD's.

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I understand what you mean, but it's all depend on the type of music you listen to, and your example of flameco records proves it. There have been such a huge amount of music released on shellac (78 rpm) and vinyl up until the arrival of CD that you cannot materially have it all re-released on CD. I mainly listen to old styled music (say from the 40s and 50s), there are a lots of good CD re-released in these fields (blues, rhythm & blues, country, rock'n'roll), but I can't help but buying rare or never re-release old records, there are pops and crackles, yes, sometimes a lot, but, music counts first in this case.

People listening mainly to 80s, 90s and onward music can really do without vinyl. Otherwise, I think you may miss a lot of good things.

Cheers
Jean-Marc

Thanks for the replies guys. Think i'll try the pressure method first.....three months is a bit of a wait though. I've been looking for this particular record for a while and even though it was warped, I thought i'd take a gamble on it anyway. Well i guess patience is a virtue anyway.

Regards

I tend to agree with you.. I didn't have a particularly large record collection.. only about 100 LPs and a few hundred singles. but I gave the lot away..

The CD is less hassle.

Fair enough if someone wants to listen to records from the 1950s so are so obscure and uninteresting that no-one would would ever buy them on CD and the only reason record shops still have them is that they have been lying around in stock for 40 years because most people haveno interest..

By and large the CD suffices. Better packaged, looks better, can play them in your car (try doing that with an LP - you couldn't even do it on a horse and cart)...

Modern reproduction methods are also, to the best of my understanding, much more advanced than even 20 years ago when CDs started going into production... hence even for those people who love vinyl.. a modern cd probably has more detail in it than a 40 year old LP.

There is all this talk that the best CD players being no match for the best record players... I am not one to get into that dispute.. however the age of vinyl is pretty much dead... a dead parrot... defunct.. finished.. ended...

even djs these days are making increasing use of the CD as opposed to vinyl.. (whatever happened to my friends twin deck Technics thing?)

There will always be those who prefer the horse and cart to a Mercedes 500 SL... Unfortunately they spend to much time looking at the past and not thinking about the future...

The only thing I regret about giving away my record collection was the first 45 that was ever given to me "Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting" went with it... I certainly have no romantic notion for "The Wombles of Wimbledon"...

I think I also inherited something called "Mrs Mills Christmas Party".. I will not be sad if the day of vinyl dissapears with "Knees up Mother Brown"

Regards

Belsizepark

"By and large the CD suffices. Better packaged, looks better, can play them in your car..."

CD suffices - yes, that's about all though

Better packaged - the jewel cases fall to bits once they've been opened a few times. The fonts used on the inserts are so small that I have trouble reading them (I've got pretty good eyesight still!)

Looks better ? - a matter of opinion, but a well designed LP cover was a minor work of art (I don't just mean the Roger Dean covers).

Yes you can play CD's in the car - you can also burn your LP's on to CD which can then be played in the car!

OK so Sony were never going to introduce an LPMan, but who cares.

Vinyl still sounds better, which is important to most members of this forum at least.

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Originally posted by belsizepark:
Fair enough if someone wants to listen to records from the 1950s so are so obscure and uninteresting that no-one would would ever buy them on CD ....a modern cd probably has more detail in it than a 40 year old LP.

Belsizepark

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Let me the right to disagree with you. To be clear I have something like 800-900 CDs and 1000 LPs. I do like and appreciate CDs, especially recent ones on which mastering has dramatically improved.

Concerning "uninteresting that no-one would would ever buy", let be fair and don't knock everyone else tastes. As I explained before, you will NEVER have everything re-released on CD, there have been far too much records produced. And here lies lots of VERY GOOD music. The "uninteresting" is not for the music but for the major companie's money income.

And concerning "modern cd probably has more detail in it than a 40 year old LP", again let me disagree. Have you ever listen to some of those wonderful Capitol, RCA, Columbia or Decca (to name but a few) LPs from the 50s? They are really great and give its day to a lot of modern (and bad mastered) CDs.

I won't start this CD vs vinyl war again, I do appreciate both formats. For the same recording, I listen to the format that I think gives the best result sonnically. It is CD, or sometimes a 78

Cheers
Jean-Marc