Cutting on Non-Lacquer Discs

[Aussie0zborn]

We have touched on this in other topics but I have no definitive answers to hese questions....

What can you cut on apart from lacquer discs with a good result??
Does anyone cut on vinyl blanks? Would you do this with a Neumann SX74 cutterhead or do you risk damaging it? Whats the quality like?

[lester]

at this moment i'm cutting on vinyl blanks; sometimes it's diffucult to vacuum the chip; you really cannot compair it with the laquer chip! The vinyl chip easily keeps sticking to the stylus...It is all depending on the room t° and also the stylus heat and the head weight. The vinyl disks do have a certain surface noise but once you got it all right you can minimize this quit oké. Even now, sometimes i still get mad frustrated )
Also i've tested to cut vinyl blanks with a saphire stylus; this didn't work out; you really need a diamond stylus to do this.
Anyone another experience?

[Dub Studio]

I have been cutting vinyl blanks on a vinyl recorder as a full time job for nearly five years now. The thing is vinyl blanks are different, so I imagine it will take a bit of getting used to if you are used to using acetates. I wouldn't recommend trying to cut vinyl blanks using the same setup as acetates. I would recallibrate the whole system to suit the tolerance of the medium.

[blacknwhite]

A crazy (but maybe entertaining) idea, from someone who has never cut vinyl blanks: I wouldn't try this mod on a Neumann or Scully:

If you're handy with a welding torch, and have a heat-resistant metal turntable, you could (cautiously) hack together a high-powered disk heating system using parts from a toaster, or small toaster-oven. Either dis-assemble and cut all the layers of the toaster oven exactly in half, and mount the upper half over one side of the turntable, or else remove the heater coil circuitry and weld together your own "heat shroud": You would need to cover any large air gaps with plate metal:



You'd want to make your own thermostat with a temperature sensor that brushes against the blank disk surface, to maintain the temperature you choose, probably in the range of 100-250 degrees Fahrenheit (37-121 degrees Celsius). The Youtube DVD says in the press, the vinyl is heated into soft biscuits at 160 Celcius / 320 Fahrenheit, then liquified during pressing at 180 Celcius / 379 Farenheit.

You would need to experiment a lot to find how hot you can get vinyl before it gets too soft and won't hold the shape of the first few grooves after you finish cutting the entire side.

- More Heating of the vinyl blank disk should require less stylus heat to cut; perhaps lower stylus heat would help reduce the problem of the vinyl sticking to the stylus?

- Increasing chip suction may help pull in the vinyl chip in before it sticks to the stylus?

- If the sound of PVC vinyl cuts is typically more "harsh", maybe this would solve that by making them more like cutting lacquer?

- Lastly, maybe this would make it possible to cut vinyl with sapphire tip, if that's what you want...

Don't set the house on fire...


- Bob

[drdub]

excellent idea !

[Dub Studio]

Love the picture, looks hot. Not sure the heat is all that important though. Because the plate expands when it gets hotter and then cools again after its been cut, its generally a bad idea to heat the plate too much. In my experience, no heat is better than too much heat.

If vinyl blanks get too hot (which can happen very easily) its hard to cool them down again, especially while you are cutting. I blew on one once and it flipped out like a cowboy hat, as the different parts of the plate contracted while others remained the same. So I think this method would lead to a very unpredictable situation and a thermostat might not be enough to control it.

Tip: if you cover the whole radius of the plate with the same amount of heat, it will be much hotter in the middle (smaller surface area to dissipate heat). A little heating round the edge is better because it will conduct to the centre, giving an even heat all over.

[drdub]

Tip: if you cover the whole radius of the plate with the same amount of heat, it will be much hotter in the middle (smaller surface area to dissipate heat). A little heating round the edge is better because it will conduct to the centre, giving an even heat all over.

that's the key to heating up your blanks evenly. always heat on the outside, and ALWAYS have the platter spinning.

[Dub Studio]

ALWAYS have the platter spinning.

true! unless you want a crater on the surface

actually while I am preparing the dubs for the day's cutting, I warm the turntable for a while, then when I put the first plate on, it warms up enough in about a minute or two. Then if I keep cutting all day, it stays warm enough so I never have to wait around

[blacknwhite]

If vinyl blanks get too hot (which can happen very easily) its hard to cool them down again, especially while you are cutting. I blew on one once and it flipped out like a cowboy hat, as the different parts of the plate contracted while others remained the same. So I think this method would lead to a very unpredictable situation and a thermostat might not be enough to control it.

Interesting! I can believe that. Thanks both for the tips, will keep that in mind if/when I ever experiment cutting PVC vinyl.

============
Another idea:

I heard someone say, vinyl blanks are relatively cheap.

I looked at Apollo's price list: Around US $17 for a 12-inch, and $12 for a 7-inch... that's more expensive than records pressed with grooves and music already on them!

I thought "vinyl blanks" are just normal records pressed without grooves. I.e., take a blank 14-inch Apollo lacquer master, send it to the platers, and then to the presses, to press up blank 12-inch discs with blank white paper labels. Just like the normal record pressing process, but without the initial cutting.

Seems like that would result in a re-selling price for blanks more like US $4 per 12-inch, and US $2 per 7-inch.

Am I missing something? Is the "Reference Lite" material that much superior for cutting than just a plain blank PVC vinyl record?

Has anyone ever tried getting a plant to press up some plain blank-pressed vinyl records, and cutting them? Results? Got any extra blank discs you'd be willing to re-sell for experimenters? Would be interesting to compare results with Reference Lites, and see if there's that much difference... of course, comparing on cheaper cutting gear, so if normal vinyl really IS that much harder, you don't rip the torque tube off your Westrex...

- Bob

[Dub Studio]

Well you can cut into anything you like, so theoretically that's possible. It all depends on how clean you want the cut. You can cut into pressed vinyl, it just doesn't sound very good cos its full of impurities, certainly not good enough for commercial use.

[blacknwhite]

Makes sense. I suppose you could request what the pressing plants call "pure virgin vinyl", but who knows what you're really getting.

Was web surfing, and see it looks like Mr. Kim Gutzke is already doing this - he must've got an order of blank-pressed 45s himself: And 100% positive ebay feedback. Although, his customers are probably all people (like me) wanting medium-fidelity dubs to play on their old jukeboxes, not exactly audiophile requirements...



"We are the only record cutting service company in the world that offers custom cut one-off 45s with the exact same contour and dimensions of true commercial vinyl pressings."

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290239420618

Interesting though to see it's good enough for jukebox play, which would be my primary interest. Got an awful lot of awesome ultra-rare Jamaican, African, & Haitian MP3s that could really ROCK the party in the juke... and could easily get blank 45s pressed in multicolored runs....

- Bob

[Dub Studio]

hmm like the sound of the haitian stuff! Looks interesting, I am guessing though, if its got the "exact same" contours as pressed vinyl, it isn't in fact pressed vinyl. I mean, if it was pressed vinyl he could just say it was pressed vinyl. Dunno if that makes sense lol

[blacknwhite]

hmm like the sound of the haitian stuff! Looks interesting, I am guessing though, if its got the "exact same" contours as pressed vinyl, it isn't in fact pressed vinyl. I mean, if it was pressed vinyl he could just say it was pressed vinyl. Dunno if that makes sense lol

Yeah, it is hard to tell if maybe it really is a different mix from pressed vinyl, or if he's just being somewhat secretive (after all, he's not the only one on eBay selling custom jukebox records, and most folks in the biz seem to like to keep their "trade secrets"...)

Sure is a tempting area for experimentation.

So many ideas on how to waste free time, so little of it...

- Bob

[cuttercollector]

I was trying to think if there was any type of pressed vinyl record that had a "blank side" or significant blank space without even lead in or lead out grooves that could be experimented with. All I can remember were certain sections of test records for anti-skate which had no grooves.
(this, BTW is not the best way to set antiskate).
I second the idea of asking a pressing plant to just press some blanks. But that would require blank stampers.
They probably could come up with those....
It sounds as if with proper stylus type, angle and heat they could be made to cut OK.

[blacknwhite]

I was trying to think if there was any type of pressed vinyl record that had a "blank side" or significant blank space without even lead in or lead out grooves that could be experimented with. All I can remember were certain sections of test records for anti-skate which had no grooves.
(this, BTW is not the best way to set antiskate).
I second the idea of asking a pressing plant to just press some blanks. But that would require blank stampers.
They probably could come up with those....
It sounds as if with proper stylus type, angle and heat they could be made to cut OK.

Anyone else interested?

If several of us went in on it & split the cost of a minimum run of say 200 45's somewhere, the price could end up "reasonable"...

At this point, I've got too much else (non-record-related) going on in life, so I'm not prepared to put up all the money for a run myself- but would be willing to go in for a small percentage of discs, maybe 20 percent...

If not, that's fine- If I ever get around to messing with vinyl-cutting seriously enough to buy a batch someday, I'll post results; hope others will do the same.

- Bob

[lester]

I got this done about 1 year ago; went to the pressing plant and ordered 25 white 12" reords with my logo on the label!
I must say the quality is ok; as usual it all depends of the heating of the vinyl and the heating of the stylus.
The disadantige of the white vinyl is that it isn't pure...pure vinyl would even sound superior i was told by the guy!

[blacknwhite]

Very Cool Lester, thanks for sharing!

Wow, they let you order only 25, that's good. I would have thought they would have a minimum of 200-500. Maybe they had some already pressed on-hand.

That's good to know, that like cuttercollector said, it might not be necessary to pay all the costs of getting them to nickel-plate a blank laquer master disk, etc, to get blank-pressed records.

Might have to try & find time to to see if I can find any specific plants that might sell me some blank 45s and 78s for cuts for the jukes... If anyone already knows of plants that will sell these in small quantities, or has some extra blanks you made for yourself that you might resell a couple at, say, twice your own cost per disc to folks on the forum, that would be cool also...

- Bob

[Aussie0zborn]

So Lester what were the cuts on the blank vinyl disc like? What was the surface noise like? Were they easy to cut and how did you go with suction of the swarf?

A record pressing plant can press records WITHOUT stampers but the surface would probably look dull, depending on the condition of the moulds in the press. So yes, best to make blank stampers from blank lacquers to get a nice mirror-like finish on the discs. This could be a nice mastering job for somebody without a lathe.

[cuttercollector]

One question about that.
When they go through the plating process to get the stamper for the mold, if the disc is a miror flat blank lacquer, will the stamper be the same?
What I'm asking is, do there need to be grooves on some part of the disc for all the plating processes to work? Without that, how would you get a clean blank surface of vinyl to cut?

[flozki]

the pressinplant will use a "mirror" this is a stamper made of an uncut laquer.. the problem is the quality of the mirror and the pressing moulds.. if you find a high quality pressingplant (do they still exist?) then you can get perfect flat records.

that can be done. but..... the pressed vinyl is very very hard... much harder than regular pvc sheets...depending on the vinyl and on the pressing-cooling temperature...
so best way is to have a pressed and then coated with something, record...

flo