Don't plate

[Serif]

In CD replication, the glass master is not really a master, either, because it is used to make the metal master for injection-moulding replicates.

You are making it up as you go along. Creating the glass master is called mastering in the optical disc business. Ask the landlord guru. Over at the Gearslutz you used that as an example of proper usage of the term

I am correcting the mis-terminology of myself and others as I go along, sure. I know that everyone claims to be mastering, but I have discovered through Research that the only place that mastering happens is underwater (in the aqueous solution of a Brugnatelli cell - i.e., during Electrodeposition). Every part which is previous to the forming of the master is forcibly a premaster, be it a grandmother (e.g., glass disc with photoresist underbelly) or a grandfather file (e.g., DDP 2.0).

If you try making an electroform without a lacquer you don't have a record. That's a pretty serious problem. You'd need something to make that from. Perhaps "master" would be an appropriate term.

'twould be sudden to call the thing that a master is formed atop, also, a master. Master-Master is negative-negative; this would create a forming fail... The sequence of siring can guide the engineer in recalling the word to use for the part s/he is creating. It is clear that the cut lacquer is not male (since she has grooves instead of ridges) and that she is made before the father (aka, master). Therefore, as I have figured out, both the oversized lacquer and big glass mistress are premaster media which are best considered grandmother parts.

Who spilled the beans that I know the identity of the avatar, Laarsø? No more sound sheets for Blackwood-san, if it were he... hehe

No one spilled the beans. It's painfully obvious.

...that I know the identity of Laarsø? How so?

What Desmond and company are actually doing is not Finishing

I haven't called MC, however, as I am focusing this tirade on people in a position to know.

You should call him and set him straight. He'll like that.

I'm sure that there is some reason like he didn't want to confuse those who are already confused, so he dropped a shingle that folks will properly misidentify. *L*

However, if he's also somehow able to do plating in his forming shop, without contaminating the cells, he might also be doing finishing work. But electroforming is so exacting a field of Electrodeposition that it is impractical to perform both Arts in the same hopefully-clean room. I don't feel a need to call MCF to set them straight. MCF aren't posting to this thread.

As I have tried to indicate numerous times, this thread is not intended to make anyone change what s/he says or calls his or her own service. It's to correct the name of this section of TSSoLT forum, so that it is not persisting in mis-signaling the craft in question at our secret handshake forum with the word for a craft that no one should be doing when making a record! *L*


By the way, whoever electroformed that dual-speed master which was grandmothered at WMM is doing something right - regardless of what it's called.

Sometimes I wonder why people are so stubborn about words when the only argument I hear against getting this sorted out is that words don't matter. ? Well, if the words don't really matter, then why not correct them?


- Andrew

[gold]

the only argument I hear against getting this sorted out is that words don't matter. ? Well, if the words don't really matter, then why not correct them?

I'd like to know whether any other languages got it right in usage. In German is it the equivalent of electroplating or electroforming? Dutch? Danish? I have an Ortofon catalog in English from 1969 that describes their matrixing equipment as electroplating equipment. No where in the literature does it say electroform. So the word electroplating has been in common usage for the process at least since the 1960's.

I have no problem with precise language. In this particular case I believe using electroform instead of electroplate would cause more confusion than it clears up. If it was changed there would need to be a sticky explaining why it was changed to avoid the same question and argument every week. After all it is a fairly fine distinction. You can use the same equipment to do either process.

[Serif]

That's outrageous. I don't know whether to call... Ortofon! (L:

If the Danish original translates to electroplating, then Fonofilm were wrong. However, it's quite possible that it was translated and proofed by someone who was misled by other texts which have been poorly proofed. A tele-fon-ofilm game of audio howlers.

Using the correct term here won't confuse anyone who thinks the wrong term is one and the same in meaning. (If A = B and B = C, then A = C, e.g.) If s/he doesn't have a clue as to what the two kinds of Electrodeposition are, s/he should Google it. No one hiring, say, Rainbo, to make a bunch of pressings has to know the difference, since they aren't necessarily in the chain of manufacturing. But, I guess I wrongly assumed that someone who had taken the trouble to pass Steve's Turing Test and join the Trolls Club would be keen to learn the actual terms which may or may not have been conflated by many a big audio gear manufacturer's marketing copy staff.

Indeed, the author from the Electrochemical Society who describes the electrodeposition cell which is set up for forming parts a "plating bath," is technically wrong, since it's a forming bath, with more stringent and exacting tolerances for throwing power and the presence of organic contaminants, and, more importantly, the bath is not going to be used for plating. It's just not going to happen, or else the bath would have to be emptied, the cell cleaned out, and the whole solution re-upped for the job of electroforming...

I forgive him, since there is a huge amount of error in everyone's speech, my own included - since we are all constantly bombarded by the wrong words used by others - even Georg (e.g., Direct Metal Mastering is really Direct Metal Grandmothering).

http://dalmar.net/electroforming.htm

I respectfully disagree with your claim that renaming this section, Electrodeposition and Pressing, would confuse a soul. If there is doubt as to the truth of the claim that the word, Plating, is incorrect for the job of mastering a disk record, one need only read up on what is entailed with electroplating and what is entailed with electroforming to understand that these are different endeavors with opposite goals. One is involved with Finishing, and the other is involved with Mastering.



Servus,
Andrew

[concretecowboy71]

If we follow your logic. We have to rename the section on Vinyl Mastering too. I am sure the newbies reading Vinyl Grandmothering would really understand that one...

[Serif]

If we follow your logic. We have to rename the section on Vinyl Mastering too. I am sure the newbies reading Vinyl Grandmothering would really understand that one...

Vinyl Mastering actually (, even though it doesn't get used this way,) means manufacturing virgin vinylite, therefore, there is no error, provided one may post on the topic.


If there were a section of this forum called, Vinyl Mastering, and it meant cutting lacquers or coppers destined for electroforming, then it should be changed to Stamper Grandmothering. That should make it clear as Helium. (:


Alas, it is called, Vinyl Mastering, Lacquer Cutting, Pro's and Others. As long as makers of thermoplastics are welcome to post there, we are right as rain in that section.

However, Plating is slang and therefore deserves to be put at least inside quotation marks, since this is, again, the opposite endeavor to making stampers. The ions deposit where they find their electrons. But plating is to be avoided.


Servus,
Andrew

[Angus McCarthy]

I look at it as the same as Army slang. Some terms get used wrongly so often that they enter the community's consciousness without a second thought, and eventually become sanctioned and semi-official. Everyone knows what is meant by a particular word despite it, perhaps, being the wrong word.

I'm gonna go Hoover up some Kleenexes from under the Davenport.

[gold]

Using the correct term here won't confuse anyone who thinks the wrong term is one and the same in meaning.

I have never heard anyone involved in record production refer to the process as electroforming. I think electrofoming is the wrong term since it has never been in common usage for the process. I see the term as more of a fun fact than a moral imperative.

Saying Pick-Up Vehicle is more awkward than saying Pick-Up Truck even though it's not technically a truck.

[JayDC]

i was told long ago that the term was metal mastering.. but wtf do I know...

[Serif]

Using the correct term here won't confuse anyone who thinks the wrong term is one and the same in meaning.

I have never heard anyone involved in record production refer to the process as electroforming. I think electrofoming is the wrong term since it has never been in common usage for the process. I see the term as more of a fun fact than a moral imperative.

Saying Pick-Up Vehicle is more awkward than saying Pick-Up Truck even though it's not technically a truck.

I've heard it spoken by a record stamper electroformer and seen some of the work of K. R. Smith, the guy who manufactured the first 16" transcription disc for broadcast and who manufactured Smith brand electroforming systems, including the developing the mercury swivel commutator for the spinning cathode workpiece. His obit was in the AES (not American Electroplating Society, but Audio Engineering Society's journal). These guys say electroforming. Anyone who calls it plating is speaking jive. It might be unbelievably widespread, this jive talkin', but it's not scientific and the music biz should "own up" that they were wrong. It's ok to be wrong. But not repeatedly and deliberately even after you've been shown what's right.


I'd call a pickup truck a pickup. It's definitely not a put down (truck), but this is the inverted logic of calling electroforming, plating.




Andrew

[Serif]

i was told long ago that the term was metal mastering.. but wtf do I know...

No need for profanity, Mate. You were told the correct term for the first step of stamper forming. Mastering is the first step - the beginning of a lovely sequence of siring by electrodeposition. The type of electrodeposition at work is electroforming (not electroplating, in any step of the 3-step deposition process available). Grandmothering happens to lacquer or copper disks which are destined for electroforming stampers. Mastering only happens to metal, as it is electrodeposited on the lacquer premaster (coated in Ag plus Dextrose or similar, or, in the case of a rare mod, Ni is sprayed as the coating, but this art and special formula have become Unobtainium, since the 90's, not long after its late introduction to the craft). Mothering happens to metal when the master (aka matrix, aka Father) is used as a passivated mandrel. Childbirth happens when the Mother is used as a passivated mandrel. Well, not childbirth, per se, but the manufacture of sons. There are no daughters in this cruel metaphorical family tree.



Andrew

[Aussie0zborn]

Mastering is making a master that will be used to make copies for distribution. It could be as simple as splicing a 1/4" tape to put songs in the right order. Once spliced that tape is a master if its sent off for duplicaction.

As we know, mastering can involve tweaking and "sweetening" the audio from a variety of sources and compiling this onto a tape or disc that will go off to the replication plant. The producer takes his master tapes from the recording studio to the mastering guy who tweaks it and produces another master for replcation, and delivers this in a variety of tape, disc or digital file formats.

So at each stage of the process, the mastering guy, the disc cutting guy and the electroforming guy in the plating department all receive a different type of master... and each produces a different type of master to pass along the chain. If you think about it, a master can be a piece of shit that you cover in plaster-of-paris to make a mould for duplication but more importantly a master is whatever you want it to be.

As for plating and electroforming, when I did this job I knew it was electroforming but I also knew I was plating nickel onto the silver layer of the lacquer disc I had just cut on my all analogue VMS70/SX74/SAL74/SP75/MT75 system with Dolby A and SR, UREI LA4 and Univeral Audio LN1176 units. And I used my EMI plating tanks to do this.

So if I chose to not separate the nickel that I had plated onto the silver face of my freshly cut lacquer disc then that would just be plating. The fact that I chose to separate the plated part made me an electroformer. So from first hand experience I know that you have to plate first before you can electroform.

I can prove this :

One time I forgot to passivate the mother, plated it and thats the end of my story. As the plating was not removable I had hardly electroformed anything. But if I had passivated the mother, I would have been able to move to the next part of the prcoess - ie: sepearted it and electroformed. As a consequence of this experience, I have no problem in calling it by its universally accepted name in the record manufacturig industry: plating, as you gotta plate first. (Just don't forget to passivate). If you dont believe me you can try this yourself next time you visit the plating department of your local pressing plant. This is probably why Fonofilm, Europafilm, MusiTech, TTT and Swedish Plating all made "plating" tanks, according to some or all of their literature.

But even worse than calling electroforming "plating" is that non-English speaking countries have adopted American spelling for the English language. I understand language is dynamic but there is no excuse for teaching xenophones the English language with incorrect spelling but this goes unnoticed and has become universally accepted. Some things are best left as they are.

C'est la vie!

[Serif]

Mastering is making a master that will be used to make copies for distribution. It could be as simple as splicing a 1/4" tape to put songs in the right order. Once spliced that tape is a master if its sent off for duplicaction.

What you've described is Recording and not quite mastering. If it's a master tape to be duplicated, you've recorded the original tape and had copies made. No mastering required. Mastering is electroforming a master.

As we know, mastering can involve tweaking and "sweetening" the audio from a variety of sources and compiling this onto a tape or disc that will go off to the replication plant.

This is premastering. Mastering doesn't actually happen until you electroform the master. One might be hot to call what he does, mastering, but that don't make it so...

The producer takes his master tapes from the recording studio to the mastering guy who tweaks it and produces another master for replcation, and delivers this in a variety of tape, disc or digital file formats.

Sure, guys call themselves mastering engineers who are neither. So what? Doesn't make them accurate self descriptions, unless it is well understood that these terms are slang.

So at each stage of the process, the [pre]mastering guy, the disc cutting guy and the electroforming guy in the [non-]plating department all receive a different type of (pre)master... and each produces a different type of (pre or even post) master to pass along the chain. If you think about it, a master can be a piece of shit that you cover in plaster-of-paris to make a mould for duplication but more importantly a master is whatever you want it to be.

No need for vulgarities. The fecal/plaster of Paris substrate you suggest is not metal, and it wasn't formed under water, so it wasn't mastered. It was a mass of something, to be sure... *L* What it is is a disposable mandrel, which is always a premaster.

As for plating and electroforming, when I did this job I knew it was electroforming but I also knew I was plating nickel onto the silver layer of the lacquer disc I had just cut on my all analogue VMS70/SX74/SAL74/SP75/MT75 system with Dolby A and SR, UREI LA4 and Univeral Audio LN1176 units. And I used my EMI plating tanks to do this.

Those EMI tanks should be called electroforming tanks. They are not used for any plating. What you described doing is deposition. There should be no plating. Only deposition of the silver onto the electroform. To say, plate, implies "best adhesion to the substrate." The master is not a substrate. It is the form which deposits onto the mandrel.

So if I chose to not separate the nickel that I had plated onto the silver face of my freshly cut lacquer disc then that would just be plating. The fact that I chose to separate the plated part made me an electroformer. So from first hand experience I know that you have to plate first before you can electroform.

I can DISprove this :
The silver is sprayed as a washable deposit (not plated). The stamper forms by way of electrodeposition on the silver. Nothing gets plated to the lacquer, or even to the metal workpiece (post-mastering) if this is done correctly. Furthermore, silver doesn't have to be used. Some people were able to figure out how to use Nickel as what gets sprayed directly onto the lacquer. So, there is no phasing of metals required (or even recommended, since the removal of the silver deposit detracts in some cases audibly from the treble groove pattern, which is why a 1-step mastering process sounds a little duller or worse than the stamper which a 3-step electroforming process can yield, unless Nickel is what is first sprayed onto the lacquer to achieve conductivity).

One can't mechanically part the master from the silver, but one can mechanically part the electroform from the lacquer. The industry of electroforming is clear on this (especially when far away from audio folks).

One time I forgot to passivate the mother, plated it and thats the end of my story.

Right - manufacturing fail. Shouldn't have plated it is all I've tried to point out, here. This section is not about plating, in spite of the slang term used in the title.

As the plating was not removable I had hardly electroformed anything. But if I had passivated the mother, I would have been able to move to the next part of the prcoess - ie: sepearted it and electroformed. As a consequence of this experience, I have no problem in calling it by its universally accepted name in the record manufacturig industry: plating, as you gotta plate first.

One should refrain from plating at all steps of the electroforming process. You electrodeposit ions as metals where they find their electrons, but plating is to be avoided. That's for metal finishing, which is done outside of stamper forming processes and concerns.

(Just don't forget to passivate). If you dont believe me you can try this yourself next time you visit the plating department of your local pressing plant. This is probably why Fonofilm, Europafilm, MusiTech, TTT and Swedish Plating all made "plating" tanks, according to some or all of their literature.

All that literature mis-speaks if one has a hard-nosed, strict understanding of the science. So what? Don't be afraid to be more correct than Fonofilm or Georg.

But even worse than calling electroforming "plating" is that non-English speaking countries have adopted American spelling for the English language. I understand language is dynamic but there is no excuse for teaching xenophones the English language with incorrect spelling but this goes unnoticed and has become universally accepted. Some things are best left as they are.

I agree. But other things, such as a whole section devoted to manufacturing at a site called the Secret... should have no shame in averring that the secret is out! No plating. Only deposition happens to the mandrel. What happens to the electroform is also deposition. One might say that it's too bad that the silver gets plated to the Nickel, but that's actually not a type of "electroplating," which is always deliberately a means of finishing an existing metal part. Whereas, electroforming requires that the new part be able to be parted. Dolly Parton and Barbara Mandrel are our Muses, here.



Skol,
Andrew

[GeorgeZ]

I understand Serif's exactness, but many of us are in business and should offer products and services that most people knows under often used names. We cannot change the name of one of our service to Electroforming when most of "partially educated" customers know it as Plating.

We have a company here in CZ with the following web: http://www.electroforming.eu/indexAJ.htm and its Czech version: http://www.electroforming.eu/index_soubory/Page447.htm
It is clearly stated there, that a Czech word "galvanoplastika" means "electroforming". So we probably will continue using the correct word "galvanoplastika" on our Czech web page, but I am still not sure about the English one... I will discuss it with my colleagues from our "Galvanka" (short version of galvanoplastika) department.

I hope we will find some more descriptive words for Electroplating, e.g. "Metal processing" or similar technically neutral, but correct words.

Regards,

[Serif]

Hi Jiri Z.,

If you are ok with the term, I will back off. I'll not abjure, but I will refrain from defending this further. Everybody in vinyl has love for GZ.

I believe that the arcane word in English is Galvanoplasty. This seems the cognate of your language's word.

I like that word, Galvanoplasty - the way it sounds. Clearly this is the reason why audio people use a word, rather than in strict adherence to the scientific terms ...especially if the technically correct word is emotionally discordant, from a sort of synaesthesia perspective.

"Master" sounds more hustler than "premaster," to be sure. But do we want to hustle and use that old word? If so, why? Is it helping our understanding? Yes, but only because of something other than correctness.

In digital audio manufacturing, provenance matters, so that you know when the last proof happened and things before that must be good. But in another sense, there is no need to call something a master if the dub is a numerical clone. They must be indistinguishable or else there is error, however small. Whereas, there is so much error in analog copying that to control the telephone game effect we zealously protect the master and make all important copies as close as possible to it. Notice how we don't call it "the baby?"

Bye Honey, I'm going to the studio to make a baby. 0: Don't worry, it's not ours....


As I have sort of harped about, before, Galvanism is named (by A. Volta?) after Luigi Galvani, but Electroforming was developed by Luigi Brugnatelli. A simple conflation because both Italian men were named Luigi and involved with using electrochemical cells for their work. In fact, the first primary cell was the Voltaic pile, using a zinc electrode. This primary cell was I think (from random Googoling (deliberately correctly spelled )) used in Luigi Galvani's bioelectricity experiments. DC current flowing out of the cell into the nerve of the subject life-form.

However, in Electrodeposition, one uses a sort of secondary cell. L. Galvani may be thought of, let's say, as "galvanising" the ions into action, the way that men are galvanised to do a task or launch some meme or other... Nevertheless, in my troll-like mind, I think that it should have been called a Brugnatelli cell and that Electrodeposition, since it covers both plating and forming, is the umbrella word for English translation.

Too late to right some wrongs? I actually hope so. *L*


Deposition sounds like a legal term but not if it is said, Deposit Ion. Then again, which "deposits," the ion or the metal which is now neutral? It was still in motion when it was last an ion and didn't stick to the form until it became a neutral metal of itself - closing the valence shell number normally present. So, it was a deposited metal. Electrometallics.

Ok. But, let's go even better. Let's not tell anyone that no one is trying to do electrodeposition when making a part, because this will only confuse clients into going to other engineers for mastering. )L:



Servus,
Andrew

[mossboss]

Ziri's signature should have alerted you to it any way have another read
No need for this long drawn out discourse we all agree that it is electro forming
The common usage prevails and no manufacturer ever made electro forming equipment
All been said in various disguises manifestations here
It's a boot n the UK but a trunk in the USA
A torch in the UK but a flashlight in the USA
We never get a sore fanny rooting for our team in Australia either
When we root we reproduce the fanny part is at the front not the rear it partakes in the process of procreation
And the pot plants are anything that one puts in a kind of a flower pot to grow but in the USA it is a completely different twist a pot plant is very specific to marijuana grass pot etc etc etc
So do we need to go on any longer on this
I dare say not
Repeating Sir Winston's words
A common people separated by a common language
Cheers
Chris

[Serif]

Ziri's signature should have alerted you to it any way have another read

I'm well aware that Jiří knows that premastering is what is done with a lathe or a DAW plus CD-R burner. I wasn't trying to say that he is not mastering. That was just another ensample of the wordblur which abounds in audio that I put into my brief, but sweeping reply.

No need for this long drawn out discourse we all agree that it is electro forming

Well, it wouldn't have been long or drawn out if all had initially agreed that Jiří Z., K. R. Smith, Russel A. Richter (http://garelectroforming.com/), and others are correct. Unfortunately, this thread has been assailed with posts from those who didn't know the difference but were sure they were right and I was wrong.

If innocent deposition is conflated with the word, plating, then there is a misunderstanding of what it means to "plate," versus to "deposit." To plate is to deposit on a mandrel with best adhesion. Whereas, there is only moderate adhesion to the electroforming mandrel and the desire to part them, afterwards - quite unlike the desire of the electroplater. S/he wants his finish to last and adhere permanently.

The common usage prevails and no manufacturer ever made electro forming equipment

Well, K. R. Smith called his equipment electrroforming tanks. The others made electroforming tanks which were marketed to audio types as elecrtoplating tanks, but they weren't intended for plating if used to make a partable form. They were made so that the operator could preclude plating, if s/he was mindful of the stringent aspects of the Art.

All been said in various disguises manifestations here
It's a boot n the UK but a trunk in the USA
A torch in the UK but a flashlight in the USA
We never get a sore fanny rooting for our team in Australia either
When we root we reproduce the fanny part is at the front not the rear it partakes in the process of procreation
And the pot plants are anything that one puts in a kind of a flower pot to grow but in the USA it is a completely different twist a pot plant is very specific to marijuana grass pot etc etc etc
So do we need to go on any longer on this
I dare say not
Repeating Sir Winston's words
A common people separated by a common language
Cheers
Chris

I agree that dialects abound. However, it reads as a howler to say that when manufacturing vinyl pressing parts, one is plating. That isn't a dialect, it's a die-laughing... *L*

Weird how flammable and inflammable are one and the same. But non-flammable is not flammable (until the heat is sufficient).

Indefatigable? de-briefable? Someone has put too many negatives somewhere, and I suspect it is on the cathode!



- Horace Inaround

[mossboss]

You are certainly a wordsmith Sir Andrew
May be with all this horsing around I will just add another level of complexity for your wordly input
Here we go
It has been that practice in some electrodepositing firms that while an electroform is been manufactured as per norm to introduce an AC pulse periodically so as to remove a certain amount of the deposit
This was and it is done so as to ensure no hydrogen encapsulation at high throw settings besides ensuring fine hair like deposited metal is removed from the deposit
Now Sir Horace
In all available literature this is referred to as de plating
Can we please have a description or a definition for this action
So since we electroform what are we doing than?
De electro deposit or de electroform
May be in your limitless unlimited or never devoid store of words you may come up with an addition to the wonders of the English language as used in the electro whatever industry vocabulary
Best of thoughts
Cheers

[Serif]

I have only seen conventional rectifiers over at the job shop, so I don't know if they are planning to use AC that way. Since plating is not really happening (to the mandrel - only depositon to a coating, which adheres to the form), I'd call it pre-parting. 0: There's always a word to describe something. If not, we invent one. But why use a word from a different trade just because we are doing audio? (I ask this of Fonofilm and EMI, not of fellow trolls who are, like myself, here to learn more...).

Fortunately, nothing is plated to the mandrel, and that Nickel deposits to Silver, even when it is not plated to the lacquer, is a genuine convenience, since the fabled Nickel spray formula (introduced in the 80's or 90's) is probably Unobtainium, at least for the time being...

A plated metal deposits to a target metal object in order to protect it from oxidation or give it a desired lustre, or to make it harder, etc... Whereas, an electroform gets deposited, in the case of conventional stamper creation, only onto a removable coating (not mechanically, but chemically so).

That's a neat trick, the AC pulsing, but it is something I need to learn more about before I can do any hand-waving of it (away)... From what I have so far read and heard about, one needs only continue depositing the neutral metal (once ions) until the desired thickness is achieved and then mechanically to part the form from the lacquer or the already-passivated Nickel surface of the Father or Mother. That Silver adheres to the form, and not the mandrel's lacquer coating proves that it wasn't plated to it. Plates are deposited to existing metal surfaces, But the form was formed after the Silver to which the Nickel is deposited. This is the opposite of plating in every way. Sorry that I care about this, since it is probably not as amusing to others as it was to me at the outset of this thread's composition. *L*

Servus,
Andrew Horace Whippled

[GeorgeZ]

Hello guys,

well, we produce our own copper plates for DMM. They are steel plates with a 100 micrometers thick layer of copper on them. Could this process be called electroplating? It shouldn't be possible to separate both layers. So we do both - electroforming and electroplating, OK? We will probably use a neutral "Metalwork" word for menu of our new web pages and later will explain the process correctly and more in-depth in text of every page.

[Aussie0zborn]

Good point, Jiri. Sounds like electroplating to me. And I suppose you would be doing this in an electro
forming tank?