Pressing Picture Discs - Materials Needed?

Once you have cut a master laquer, you have metal stampers created and have records pressed from them. Discuss manufacturing here. (Record Matrix Electroforming- Plating, Vinyl Record Pressing.)

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SUNBEARS
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Pressing Picture Discs - Materials Needed?

Post: # 45897Unread post SUNBEARS
Tue Jan 31, 2017 10:56 pm

Hello Trolls. It's been a while.

Been busy with our new factory down here in Florida, VINYLrp, pressing like crazy.

But! I wanted to reach out and ask all you trolls for some info regarding pressing picture discs and what materials are used to do it.

Mainly in regard to the film. I've heard many differing things as to what material and at what thickness the film is. Some say PVC, some say it's Mylar, etc.. I know a few of you have some experience pressing pictures discs. If you would help point me in the right direction, that would be fantastic!

Thanks in advance.

Cheers,
J
The loudness war is over, if you want it! - http://www.berlinmastering.co

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Boydie
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Re: Pressing Picture Discs - Materials Needed?

Post: # 45944Unread post Boydie
Sat Feb 04, 2017 1:25 pm

Is that's the same Sunbears as the band?

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diamone
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Re: Pressing Picture Discs - Materials Needed?

Post: # 46671Unread post diamone
Mon Apr 17, 2017 3:37 pm

First thing you have to understand is everybody is doing the same mylar-over-11-1/4 inch paper over the same black or opaque color 11-7/8 biscuit as everybody else.

Being no thicker than a soundsheet, the sound quality of the mylar is of course terrible and wears out fast - some say having fewer decent plays than a lacquer.

The people that are doing the clear or transparent color picturediscs have it half-right one way: they use the transparency of the vinyl to impress one side of the disc as if it were a full weight album - and then does the paper-label-under-mylar film routine on the other side so that only ONE side sounds bad.

Talking Heads on the other hand got it half right the other way - they took two one-sided full-weight discs -printed the ART on a mylar sheet INSIDE the disc instead of the sound on the OUTSIDE - put that inbetween and cemented the two sides together.

Of course this resulted in a 300G+ disc with a BIIIGGGG seam in the middle but at least both sides had their full weight of vinyl behind each side and wouldn't degrade over time like the mylar sides with the music would do.

If I were doing picturediscs anymore, I woukd take a page from Jack White's custom operation in Nashville.

In one example, he took the Talking Heads idea and split it in half - meaning he pressed each single-sided disc on 70 grams of vinyl (like a Dynaflex) but completely 100% flat on the back side with a little indentation all the way around the disc with the matching ridge on the other side - reversed by another indentation and ridge a couple millimeters offset from the first one and another one near the hole.

He printed the art on the mylar the same way - but enlarged the center hole of the art and shrunk the diameter to fit inside the ridges. While the discs were still warm - he placed the mylar art inbetween and lined up the two sides as one would line up a Rubbermaid tub with its' lid - and set the three indentations into their grooves like he did for his liquid-filled releases.

The other method he used took a page from the old Vogue picture discs from the 40s which printed the art on a piece of thin tin or sheet steel. The original of course used half the schellac biscuit on the bottom and the other half on top.

This version wasn't that much different using e.g. one biscuit intended for a 10-inch on top of the tin and another one on the bottom - not only sealing the tin inside the record - but providing high-quality full-thickness vinyl for both sodes of the disc.

Presumably you could do the same thing for art printed on mylar but it seems to me I recall the inks being different than e.g. paint on tin and people having problems with smudging during the pressing process, but I lose track.
2 Kinds of Men/Records: Low Noise & Wide Range. LN is mod. fidelity, cheap, & easy. WR is High Fidelity & Abrasive to its' Environment. Remember that when you encounter a Grumpy Engineer. (:-D)

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