Careers, people... and where they can take you!

[NottinghamToolexAlpha]

- Thought I'd introduce myself after posting a couple of thoughts...
CC, from the UK - and was, untill recently pressing a few records...

Using a Toolex-Alpha, more common in europe than the SMT " Automatic" Press( and, argubly - more relieable!), at peak, we pressed upto 200,000 records a week...
- not bad for an industry that's in decline..!

As the company I Worked went to the wall, so did our jobs - so whilst looking for another - decided to set up myself to fill a niche gap - doing primerily small runs and T/p's, and more specialist work, similar to the stirling work Peter King is doing over in NZ, trying to build a reputation for doing small but quality work-

All the best to steve for putting up a site that is a god-send to us strange folk that find all this fascinating - I love hearing stories of guys being in the industry for so long... having seen it all come and go - then come back again - craftsmanship is something the're justifybly proud of ...!

Good luck to all who endeavor to pursue their art - whether for work or pleasure.. it's good to know there are others out there..................

[blacknwhite]

Using a Toolex-Alpha, more common in europe than the SMT " Automatic" Press( and, argubly - more relieable!), at peak, we pressed upto 200,000 records a week...
- not bad for an industry that's in decline..!

Awesome! Welcome.

Stories?

Question, maybe I should be asking a chemist or something, but : I've always wondered, you know how when guests you've invited to your house, get drunk, smash ex-girlfriends' CDs, and try lighting them on fire... the plastic smokes, blackens, and stinks.

Why doesn't that happen when record vinyl is heated in a record press? Why no smoke and smelly fumes when the heat's applied, nor burn marks on either the disc or the label when the record comes out?

That may be an unfairly tough one, just curious...

Would love to hear any random stories/experiences too...

- Bob

[NottinghamToolexAlpha]

Hi Bob- you obviously never came to our plant! -this DID happern, all the time.. and it stank!!!

Generally, it's a question of getting the tempeture right, the "Flow" right - from the "Hopper" pipe to the molds, where it forms a "puck" - I believe in the US they call it a "biscuit"...and trial and error- vinyl has an optimum operating tempreture which makes it pliable, and it is this you have to get right before it cooks the vinyl - espcially if you're using "Re-grind" - recycled particles of old records put through a grinder - as it takes longer to heat up, and sometimes, just doesnt want to do it, no matter how hard you try...thereby "cooking" the vinyl - causing the stink!

Of course, it's usually easier with 100% Virgin Vinyl - the beads you can buy in, as it's First generation and easier to heat up - but obviuosly much more expensive, as with any vinyl plant, you always get rjects which sound nothing like the client's Test pressing, and sometimes - by the time you've realised - you pressed over a 1,000 records! -and they all have to go back in the hopper, so nothing is wasted....well, except the labels, which have to come out of your profit (-which is why pressing plants will ALWAYs ask you to get at least 200 more labels printed than you actually need, because of these little"mis-haps...!

That said, it IS remarkably satisfying to press records, even with all the problems of setting up, rejects, irate customers who do not understand the concept of time being in a different realm in a factory enviroment - you only have to make one mistake (- and we're all human!)
, and you're put back 2 days- a stamper splits, thru nobody's fault but the machine throwing what we call " A wobbly" - and refusing to sit the stamper in the mold - I've gone thru 3 different stampers - all brand new - and the press, like any tempremental woman, justs chew them all up for no apparent reason ...??? What can you do, other than apolgise, and offer the client some freebies..and a nice cuppa to calm down, as we do in England..!

Leaving you with this thought ...a customer came with an order for 20,000 records, 10,000 of each A/B - C/D - and do you know, they went thru 5 different pairs of hands, 2 packers, and the customer before a distibutor realised they were wrong...and what was wrong?? they all had exactly the same labels - both sides!!!! the 3 other labels wer'nt even used! Never mind said the customer, we'll just tell people they had the Limited Edition Version instead!!! - lovely guy.....CC

[cd4cutter]

Just curious, CC, how large a pressing plant did you work in during the "good times"? You are right that the Toolex Alpha presses are more common in europe, but we had 7 lines of 7 Toolex Alpha presses each (49 12 inch presses total) running at the RCA Records plant in Indianapolis up to our closing in 1987. We then moved most of them down to our affiliate in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Don't know if any of those are still in operation. We were also using converted EMI automatic injection presses to make styrene 45s up to the end of production. I hated styrene as a record compound as it wears out very quickly, but it had become common in the US because it was cheaper and faster to produce than vinyl 45s. I don't believe styrene ever caught on in Canada. Was it ever used for record pressing in europe?

[blacknwhite]

cd4, Definitely Agreed about styrene 45s - I grew up in the 80s, my 45s shredded on my cheap BSR auto-player, grrr...

CC, thanks for the cool info and stories!

That's fascinating about how regrind was more difficult to press than virgin. I would have thought it faster, since older reground LPs seem to melt & deform quicker in the hot sun than virgin vinyl ones, but I was surfing the web and saw the same thing you said, virgin PVC is generally "easier to work with" for all uses.

So many questions for both you guys (and anyone else reading).... one simple one: I *seem* to remember, as a kid, seeing a reggae documentary, showing some people in Jamaica standing outside under a tent, sawtting away flies, with tiny little hand-made-looking electric waffle iron presses on a fold-out table, with long poles sticking out for lid-handles (for manual leverage to press), with small-gauge garden hoses attached to the back, using them to hand-press 7-inch 45s... I know you guys worked in professional-quality large pressing plants, but did you ever hear stories of 7-inch presses that small, either home-made or professionally-made?

Another question:

I've seen the video where they pour vinyl pellets into a hopper, it goes into a machine, and soft melted vinyl oozes out of a hole in the "extruder" to form the puck. Found & read part of a fascinating article on Wikipedia, on the construction of a plastic extrusion machine, with the feedscrew, and description of how the pipeline is gradually heated more and more to warm the granules to soft dough by the time they exit...





(If anyone's interested, the article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastics_extrusion)

The article mentions that the above simple feed screw puts the plastic under higher and higher pressure and temperature before it exits. The article mentions that there are other variations, or "zones", which are sometimes used in areas of the feedscrew, such as "depressurizing zones", which "allow trapped gasses to be vented", but it doesn't explain exactly how that works.

My question is: Did either of you ever have problems with trapped air bubbles in the pucks used to press the records? It's a total mystery to me, how the extruders don't end up trapping air bubbles in the puck, and its really bugging me... (don't know why, I don't press records for a living!)

Were the extruders really pretty reliable at removing air bubbles, and if so, any guess as to how they did it? Or did you have some other step in the process for removing the trapped air from the heated vinyl before pressing, like putting the pucks in a vacuum degassing chamber?

More stories always welcomed.

Thanks,
- Bob

[NottinghamToolexAlpha]

Hi Bob -

Really enjoying this thread...firstly - Styrene 45's??? What IS this? never heard of it - over hear in Europe, I've only ever heard of, and worked with vinyl...unless you mean the injection moulded 45's that came out of europe for people like Polydor and Philps in the 70's/80's - are they Styrene? I'd like to hear more - and why it was so bad!

2nd - Home made/small presses - I've only ever come across one, which apparently came from south america in the 70's and ended up here in the Midlands( Central England) I think it was proberly due to all the Bootleging of all the Northern Soul 45's tha went on over here at that time - it was a huge "Cottage industry", with copies of southern soul 45's changing hands for vast amounts then, so plausible to have one local - Icsaw it in a downtown warehouse for a "Nightclub- supplies" company, selling flashing light rigs, speakers and such - altho' how and what they were doing with it I dont know, but it did look an ingenious little machine..

Basically a small 1 ton press, hand operated - with the operater presumably having a small oven at the side to heat up the pucks, a mit to pick them up with - place in between the plates, and off you go , and it still had the molds bolted in place, altho what condition they were in is anyones guess, as the very nature of bootleging suggests the quality was never very good, with stampers pressing in excess of 10,000 records a time after being patched up a few times no doubt..!.

As to your last point - the bane of any pressman's life ...GAS!
Once a puck gets gas, it's completely unuseable, the amount of waste thru this is unbelieveable! Gas by it's nature is dangerous so never re-use a gassed puck, but when they do get in the mold, they can get quite ugly, with all sorts of problems....
Gas is usually caused like you say, and not getting the right pressure in the extruder, commonly caused by using re-grind, specifically the " FLASH " - the trimmings off the side of the record when it comes out of the mold, obviously it's goes off pretty quick, creates jagged edges, and I'm sure it's this that causes the trouble when it goes thru the grinder..- you can ALWAYS tell when it's a flash bucket of vinyl, but I suppose you anticipate the problems, as you still have to use the stuff- even we, as small businesses have to keep the costs down, do our bit and recycle!!

Maybe cd4 can shed more light on this, as we only had 8 machines to play with - 49 - WOW!! that was a LOT of output! - and a lot of rejects!!!
-were there any meltdowns/strikes or general tom-foolery in your factory cd4? Be good to hear any tales...all the best from These shores..CC.

[blacknwhite]

This is a fun thread... hope I'm not being too rude monopolizing the conversation - separating replies into multiple posts - first, styrene:

firstly - Styrene 45's??? What IS this? never heard of it - over hear in Europe, I've only ever heard of, and worked with vinyl...unless you mean the injection moulded 45's that came out of europe for people like Polydor and Philps in the 70's/80's - are they Styrene? I'd like to hear more - and why it was so bad!

cd4 can tell us for sure (and correct any mistakes in this post), but my understanding just from reading is, the whole "reason" for styrene 45s is CHEAPness of production. The plastic used was different (polystyrene), and I presume cheaper (cd4?), and yes, they were injection molded rather than pressed, so they could be produced "a lot faster" (? cd4?).

I always loved records since I was a little kid... growing up in the 80s, my first record player was a cheap BSR auto-changer portable. The tone arm was naturally a bit heavier than hi-fi magnetic turntables, and the way BSR positioned the ceramic cartridge in the tone arm, for the first few records in a stack before the pile gets high, the needle hits the groove at a slight "plow" angle.

That player played LPs all day long just fine, no problem, but mom and I went crazy over how it mysteriously would play *some* 45s just fine (my EMI and Capitol label vinyl-pressed 45s), but others (every other popular American label, made of styrene), it would shred almost immediately! I don't know how many arguments she had with store owners, bringing back a brand new needle that had shredded more records. One time I let one brand new 45, and brand new needle, play autorepeat for less than an hour, and it had a half-inch coating of grey fluffy lint, from the shredded record material, and the grooves were light grey.

Mom tried and never could find another kid player that would play styrene 45s well, so we gave up, & she got me my first small "system", with stand-alone belt-drive turntable.

From my consumer perspective, styrene is a brittle, cheap, lightweight, glass-like plastic. Styrene 45s appear to maintain a perfect flatness, like glass, unlike vinyl 45s. Styrene 45 edges are sharply squared-off. When you thump a styrene 45, it "rings", rather than a vinyl 45 which makes a "thud". You can take a vinyl 45 and flex it. Try flexing a styrene 45 - it flexes a little, then snaps. My styrene 45s frequently cracked; never with the vinyl ones. Styrene was real popular in the US in the 70s: I remember we had a styrene plastic storage box, and stacked a few things on top - it exploded into little sharp pieces.

We all know the "speed wars", and how Columbia made the LP and RCA the 45... you may also know, RCA said "OK" and started making LPs, WAY before Columbia said "OK" and started making 45s. Columbia held out a LONG time making 45s, and when they finally did, it seems they didn't want it to work well... My guess is, maybe they made it out of one of the plastics they'd rejected for making their LPs out of: styrene.

It seemed to take a decade (1950s) before other companies started switching from normal vinyl 45s to styrene, but by the 80s, that's almost all there was. Except for a few labels, like EMI and Capitol; don't think I've ever seen styrene from them in the US. Motown (& affiliate labels Tamla & Gordy) also, admirably, seemed to stick mainly with vinyl; The only styrene 45s I've ever seen from them was from a brief period in the mid-70s, but maybe cd4 has more details, since I think I heard somwhere that RCA actually made the records for Motown?...

Once, and only once, I saw a styrene Columbia LP! It was from, I'd guess, the mid- to late-50s, on their red "6-eye" Columbia label, with glued-on label, where the hole in the paper label was way bigger than the LP hole (about a centimeter). I've never seen another Columbia styrene LP, but Columbia did revive an old subsidiary label, Harmony, about the same time, and made styrene Harmony LPs a short while. Also during that time, Decca's LPs (and their affiliate labels), also had that brittle styrene "look & feel", but oddly, their labels were pressed-on, not glued.

Some pics:



Vinyl on left, styrene on right - recognizable by a different "look", and lightweight, rigid, brittle "feel". Also, there's a sharp-edged drop-off, rather than a slope, at the label edge.



Vinyl on left, styrene on right - since styrene is so much more brittle, the disc had to be made much thicker, all the way out to its squared-off edge; still they cracked more.



Typical shoddily-glued-on label: labels often lifted / ripped.

[blacknwhite]

2nd - Home made/small presses - I've only ever come across one, which apparently came from south america in the 70's and ended up here in the Midlands( Central England)... Basically a small 1 ton press, hand operated - with the operater presumably having a small oven at the side to heat up the pucks, a mit to pick them up with - place in between the plates, and off you go...

Fascinating!

I get a lot of crazy "do-it-yourself" project ideas, few of which I ever carry out, probably because the ones I do, I spend excessive amounts of time trying to "double-check every detail" to make sure it comes out well.

Stories like yours, of the small press, and those Jamaican videos.. I get strange ideas!:

I'll admit, it's been a childhood fascination from when I was too young to remember, to make records. Even Ultra-Dirt-Low-Quality, which any such home-made endeavor would certainly be (I'd feel happy if it played at all).

Also, I've been seeing all these YouTube videos of home hobbyists doing crazy cool stuff, like boiling so-called "low-melt metals" like aluminum, & sand-casting metal parts in their backyards, or spin-casting on home-made equipment in their workshops... (There's a crazy video on youtube of some guys pouring a small aluminum ENGINE BLOCK at home, with the flame retardant space suits and all! They didn't say if they were successful, and precision-bored the cylinders, & made it work... I doubt it...)

One really old guy in France even posted a video of himself making WORKING triode vacuum tubes FROM SCRATCH, literally, from tube glass stock, and bent pieces of wire and metal screen which he welded and dipped in different chemicals, then formed the tube from a length of glass, then vacuumed the air out and sealed the tip, then demonstrated it working, all in his home workshop, using fairly simple self-devised tools, torches, and heaters! Okay, now I believe Anything's Possible.

Up to this point, I've only done electronics and woodworking, and then, just as a hobby. (Made some simple furniture, speakers, restore old tube amps, and made a working miniature light-up replica 1940s jukebox (non-selective)). Already got books I'm reading on basics of metalworking, welding, machining metal parts, and casting low-melt metal parts at home, as well as casting rubber parts.

This book got me to thinking:

"Secrets of Building a Plastic Injection Molding Machine", for small plastic parts up to 25 grams: (probably about the weight of a 45, Hmmm!... of course, he's talking about compact small pieces like knobs, not large-surface pieces, which I'm sure would cool too quick and jam, if attempted with his home-made injector... BUT, it would I'm sure have ideas which would be applicable to home pressing, as well as injecting...)

.

http://www.lindsaybks.com/dgjp/djgbk/inject/index.html


My new hobby I'm working on making space, time, & funds for, is metalworking. Got some info on welding, machining, etc. There're tons of cool do-it-yourself plans for projects online now, such as, how to build your own 50-ton hydraulic press using bolted-and-welded small-gauge metal I-beams, how hydraulic pumps, motors, and tubing works, electric control systems, etc.

I may never get to it, but I can't shake this urge to *someday*, for no logical reason or purpose at all, replicating, on a *miniscule* scale, the works of a 7-inch press, except for the steam boiler part. No interest at all in steam boilers. I've found general-purpose steel press platens you can order online, with channels for slower, 120- or 240-volt, electric-cartridge-heating, and air-or-water cooling... But you would have to sit and wait for a slow-heating platen to heat up between pressings, if you use safer, lower household-current, 120-volt heater elements, like in a toaster-oven... but, the only purpose of this would be for satisfying an illogical childhood fascination, so who cares how slow the pressing cycle is!...

How did they prevent the platens from "exploding" from the sudden temperature change between steam heating and water cooling? Obviously, one would only use "official" platens made specifically out of proper kind of steel, and adequite thickness, which are "rated" for extreme heat and cold, and nothing dumb like something you cast yourself out of aluminum, but STILL?...

Did they have an intermediate step between heating and cooling, where maybe they forced room-temperature compressed air through the platen cooling channels first for a few seconds, prior to the water-cooling? I realize that would be a double edge sword, since the longer you wait to cool the pressed PVC, the more likely it will burn, so this idea may not work "well", but I just have a fear of "exploding" steel platens, from cooling hot platens too rapidly...

I would imagine the "cooling water" would still actually be pretty hot water, scince I thought some plants basically just re-pumped the still-hot water from previous pressings, after allowing some of the steam/heat to evaporate off outdoors, did they?... that might perhaps explain why records are still so hot when they come off the press...

Gas by it's nature is dangerous so never re-use a gassed puck, but when they do get in the mold, they can get quite ugly, with all sorts of problems....

How so? Dangerous as in, explode in your face? Are the plasticizers that naturally escape from heated record-vinyl PVC explosive?... or is it just a matter that if you press a biscuit with a big airbubble, then, when the bubble "pops" like bubblegum, the superheated vinyl "splats" out of the press, and burns through skin? I'd imagine one would be wearing a steam-resistant apron, mitts, and eye protection when operating a manual press anyway, so worst case, it might just make a mess, requiring the press be shutdown, cooled, and scraped clean...

Any other "hidden hazards" you can think of, for hobbyists fond of the idea of working with and pressing flexible 7-inch PVC discs? Besides the obvious logical ones, such as "be responsible", and:

- wear proper protection
- work outdoors on concrete slab, 10 feet away in all directions from house
- don't use more household current than a normal home appliance
- work on a micro-miniature scale (no significant output of steam or waste, no abnormal consumption of home electricity/water)
- don't do anything that would attract attention of authorities, like setting things on fire, or burning self & having to call 911
- obviously, if this actually works, then only cut, plate, and press records of material for which you've secured the legal rights to produce from the recording owner (such as local musician friends)
- be very careful with the output of platen cooling channels: using steam-rated flexible piping, catch any hot scalding water (or steam, as it may be at first), in a non-leaking metal trashbin, and let cool overnight before dumping, don't dump hot water & cause a fish-kill

I priced extruders: Was frustrated to see there are No small-scale extruders that I can find anywhere! They're all HUGE. One company claims it made an extruder with a small 1.5-cm output, for "educational purposes", but they're out of business. I was hoping to find a "mini-extruder", like they make "mini-lathes" for metalworkers. Guess I'll have to figure out how to heat biscuits in a muffin tin in a toaster oven, without trapping gas... maybe instead of piles of pellets, just sprinkle a few pellets in each tin at a time, never more than one layer deep, then wait to soften before adding more, terribly slow, will probably start to burn & smoke, would never be able to use that oven again for food, definitely would do this outside (if ever!), with fire extinguisher handy...

Other "hidden hazards"?

Someday, somehow, maybe when I'm old and retired, and no one remembers what "records" are... I'm gonna save this info, and try this...

Thanks,
- Bob

[cd4cutter]

Bob, yes, the reason styrene was used in the making of 45s in the US was COST. Process cost, actually. The styrene compound was available mostly from one supplier, Richardson Plastics. It came in pelletized form and was easily fed into the extruder hoppers. Richardson had spend a lot of time developing the particular blend that was used by most record makers. I seem to remember that the material cost per record was not too much different from using vinyl, but the big savings were in cycle time in the injection molding machines (about 7 seconds per styrene record versus about 12 seconds for vinyl) and in facilities and infrastructure costs. The injection molding machines didn't require steam to heat the molds (a BIG cost savings). An advantage of injection molding is that the mold temperature does not have to be cycled between hot and much hotter during the cycle, so cooling water and the associated cooling tower and piping are not necessary. This is one reason the cycle time is much shorter when injection molding. Electrically heated water is recirculated in a closed system to keep the molds at a steady hot temperature. The styrene is injected at a "very hot" temperature from the extruder and it flows like water. It solidifies as it cools in the merely "hot" mold (I can't remember the temperatures we used) such that it is hard enough to be ejected when the mold opens. Also, since the styrene is injected in a very liquid state with the molds fully closed, it doesn't damage the stampers like compression molding of vinyl can. Stamper life in injection presses is very high - more than 10,000 records per stamper change was typical for us which is a further significant cost savings over compression molding of vinyl. Also, there is very little material waste with injection molding - the record's finished outside dimension is molded, so there is no "flash" that has to be trimmed from the outside of the record. Only the "sprue" is wasted. It's that part of the plastic that fills the space between the extruder nozzle and the finished molded record. That piece of hardened plastic has to be ejected from the press before the next extrusion cycle starts. Depending on your particular process, you may also waste the center of the record if you "dink" out the 1.5 inch hole as we did.

This all sounds fine and dandy, but a major problem with injection molding is that the very fine detail of the record grooves is often improperly molded due to incomplete filling of the mold cavity. When this results in tiny isolated areas which are improperly filled, this condition is called "unfill" and sounds like a staticky, clicky noise when played. It can happen with vinyl, too. But much more often with styrene is the condition where large areas of the record at the top edges of the finished groove are devoid of plastic - the proper edge of the groove is simply not there. This condition is called "unmold" and is very common with injection molding but almost never happens with compression molding as used with vinyl. Unmold results in serious distortion of the record wall which causes terrible distortion and/or loss of high frequencies when the record is played. This was our biggest problem with styrene records and required constant monitoring of the pressing process. Everybody else had this problem with styrene, too.

As you have illustrated in your posting, you can easily tell if you have a styrene record: The edge is molded rather than cut, with a clearly visible mold parting line around the edge. And everybody who made styrene 45s that I'm aware of glued the labels on after the record was molded. This is easily visible as a clear edge to be seen (and felt) on the record label. This is unlike the case with vinyl records where the labels are put into the press and the vinyl is molded between the labels which results in NO paper edge being visible on the label - the vinyl is molded right up to the edge of the paper.

I'm surprised to hear that Columbia (or anybody else) actually commercially released any 12 inch records made of styrene. As you have stated earlier, styrene is very brittle compared with vinyl and the records mechanically "ring" when you hit them or stroke them as by playing them with a stylus. We tried multiple experiments with making 12 inch records from styrene and they were just not acceptable. Mostly because of the ringing - you could clearly hear the mechanical ringing noise when the records were being played on any conventional record player. I have heard 7 inch styrenes also exhibit ringing, but the effect is not readily noticed most of the time.

Styrene is a terrible material for analog records. Its brittleness causes mechanical ringing, and the injection molding process causes unpredictable amounts of unfill and unmold conditions. But the biggest problem is its poor wear characteristics. I did extensive wear testing on record materials at RCA Records and can attest to the crappy wear quality of styrene. You can totally forget playing styrene records with the typical record player of the day which tracked a low-compliance ceramic cartridge at 5 grams or more. The record becomes instant junk. Even with a very high quality magnetic cartridge tracking at 2 grams or less, these records become noticeably noisy after about 25 plays or so. Using the best playback technology of the day, a Shibata or line contact stylus at less than 2 grams would yield maybe 50 plays before the surface noise became objectionable. All in all, styrene was a nightmare for record consumers.

We soon got an earful of complaints about 7 inch styrene from the jukebox operators and radio stations. The records were wearing out in a matter of a few days. Ever record maker had this problem, and the solution was to place small orders for 7 inch vinyl copies of each released title to be made exclusively for jukebox and radio station accounts! How's that for economy? We no longer had any 7 inch presses set up on our press floor for vinyl production, so we farmed out all of our DJ and juke copies to small independent pressing plants to be made in vinyl. These days, if I'm looking for copies of 45s from the 70s and 80s, I try to get radio station copies or copies made in Canada which never went to styrene production so far as I know.

[ArchaicRecords]

This is very useful information. In the very early 70s my first turntable was a crappy Garrard with a heavy ceramic cartridge. I experienced exactly as you described Bob, that many 45s would shred quickly. It's interesting to finally find out the name of the material that these were made of (styrene), and I did notice the difference from the vinyl variety. In the later 70s I discovered "imports", and how much vastly superior British and other European pressings were over American, and bought those whenever I could - and European 45s were reliable where U.S. 45s were usually crap. In the late 70s through early 80s, LP quality of U.S.-made records became much worse, as they increasingly relied on recycled vinyl (I even found colored pieces of labels buried in the grooves), while European pressings were made with virgin more often. I tend to think many people had these same experiences, which contributed to the downfall of records in the 80s much faster than might have been the case if vinyl pressings had been better at that time.

As a byproduct of the crappy Garrard turntable, I discovered disc-recording experimentation early on. Plugging the RCA jacks (of the ceramic-cartridge turntable) into the output of an amp, I found I could impress silent grooves with audio of my choice, although not of very high volume - the result being more of a ghostly sound effect - playing the result back 30 years later sounds like the vinyl is haunted. It was hard to find records with enough silent space, but found that 16-RPM Talking Books for the Blind LPs (mainly made in Louisville, Kentucky) contained more than 30 seconds of silence between tracks. Also, I used the blank sides of Evatone Soundsheets for cutting make-shift grooves from the ceramic cartridge.... very lo-fi, and could only carefully move the needle across manually (while pushing down), and could only get sufficient volume at 78-RPM - and not much of a groove made either (not at all practicle of course, but only an experiment).

I just pulled out a collection of 45s and tried to guess which are styrene and which are vinyl. The vast majority (U.S.) are styrene. The few imports I have are of course all vinyl. Then there are occassional ones I cannot tell. There are a few Badfinger 45s on Apple (Capitol) that mostly look vinyl, but one looks/feels more styrene. The 45s on Warner Brothers (U.S.) appear to be vinyl, but Reprise / Warner Bros - Styrene. A small label, Sceptor Records, is vinyl. Led Zeppelin's Swan Song on Atlantic Records - vinyl, but on regular Atlantic - styrene, while another is vinyl. RCA - 5 black label are vinyl, 1 black label is styrene, orange label are styrene.

[cuttercollector]

I think I have seen a few styrene 12" Lps from the American Decca label from about the late 50s early 60s era, some even stereo. They were thicker than the styrene 45s but still had that characteristic ring when tapped. They also did some "non breakable" 78s that were not shellac, but I dont think all of those were styrene.

Regarding that last post and another thread going on the forum right now,
about pressing blank vinyl discs to cut, would someone be interested in cutting some at least 7" blank discs with grooves including lead in and leadout and lock perhaps in microgroove or even in "standard" 78 style wide groove completly unmodulated for experimenters to play with embossing audio on. The pressing cost should be the same as the ones with no grooves but extra labor would be needed to cut the unmodulated lacquer to press.
RCA tried a system like this in the 30s, but it didn't work too well. When I first started fooling around with this stuff, several of my 45s received shouts of hello, hello at the end past the audio into the leadout groove from me yelling into the hole where the sound came out on an old acoustic portable record player that was tracking the groove with it's big heavy arm and steel needle.

[ArchaicRecords]

I would be interested in a few blanks containing silent grooves, for embossing.

Other embossing systems had been tried going back to at least the 1930s.
I have a few embossed steel or aluminum metal records from ca. 1933 (they look like stampers). There isn't much that can be heard from playing them though, and are supposed to be played only with a wooden needle (cactus and the like).

[cuttercollector]

For those in the UK, didn't PYE make some machine that could emboss or cut pre-grooved discs in the 60s? I had an incomplete one when I was really collecting things. It had no lathe mechanism and only a playback arm, but "record" settings and a mic input. I always thought it somehow worked like the recordette in driving the playback cartridge as a cutter or embosser with pre-grooved blank discs. Anyone from over there know about these machines? (I don't still have mine)

[NottinghamToolexAlpha]

Hi all ,been knee deep in vinyl all week- Love your enthusiam Bob - I've been thinking abou your Idea of a simple press for 45's, and the things you may encounter...hmm....

- There are simle presses still out there - what you have to find is the " molds"- the cast blocks, which are, I'm sure, still available ble - we had one 45 machine with a couple of sets of molds - the boss was keen on making old Northern soul 45's for friends and such..you wouls also need the " Locking-rings" that hold the plates on the mold - also still available-use these with a simple one ton press...

As for heating the vinyl - find an old " Industrial oven - most catering supplies firms will have an old redundant one knocking around...(sure they can work on normal electrical current?)

- get in touch with a bead supplier - contacts are on here - find a non stick " rammakin or muffin tin, around 4 inches in diam. - and heat by trial and error - remember small increments of heat, better not to burn!
- do you know someone with a garage? with light and heat? ...then thats all you need!
Really would like to see you accomplish this, as I love your enthusiasm, and you seem like you have a genuine love and interest for vinyl...you seem like a have-a-go kinda guy - so, have a go ! you might just surprise yourself..you have me and cd4 to ask for advice along the way - And I really be interested to see the results......!

All the best from these shores,

CC.

[blacknwhite]

have a go ! you might just surprise yourself..you have me and cd4 to ask for advice along the way - And I really be interested to see the results......!

Thanks! I've printed your info out, and I'm definitely sure I will have a go at this sooner or later.

I've got so many irons in the fire right now, that I'm not sure when that'll be... (the highest-priority for me right now is, while still working fulltime daytime in software engineering, I'm taking night classes in emergency medicine, prepping for hopefully a MAJOR career change, to go to 2-year grad school as a Physician Assistant... So far, so good, with the GPA, and I *love* the work, light-years more than computer crap, but Man, does it suck the free time away!...)

CC & cd4cutter, I sent you private messages...

Thanks,
- Bob

[Perisphere]

I've seen one of those late 1950s Columbia Harmony LPs pressed on styrene too. Noisy mess, sadly. Other US makes of LP I've seen on styrene include Decca, Coral and Brunswick (mid 1950s), and some United Artists product from the 1960s, specifically some of their budget Sunset albums and some of their Tale Spinners series for children.

I also have two 78s pressed on styrene! One is a Cleftones single on Gee, the other a Rusty Draper on Mercury. Both date to 1957.

[dhersk]

I had a recording studio in he late fifties and early sixties in Minneapolis, Minnesota. At the time I was using a local pressing facility plus having pressings made by Clark Galehouse, owner of Shelly Products. His plant was in the East Coast and did all of his mastering on a Presto 8DG and pressed completely on Styrene, both 45 and LP records.

I found the Styrene material to be much quieter then vinyl although life span was shortened. A number of indie labels at the time used his company for their pressings.

I have no idea with the company is still around or what happened to his equipment.

[thomas]

Just caught this post, 1-16-09.

Lots of experience here.

Mikey, happy new year!
Nottingham, may I drop by sometime and talk shop? Smt is betterjavascript:emoticon(':D').
cd4cutter, may I pick your brain?

My best-thomas

[cd4cutter]

Glad to help any way I can, Thomas. Fire away.

[emorritt]

Dhersk - your studio wouldn't happen to have been Kay Bank?