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De-Warping?


Dan Gould

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It was probably warped back in 1979 when it was packaged. That was an awful era for vinyl (shortage of petroleum). Only Japanese LP  pressings could be fully trusted, but some N.A. pressings were OK.  My de-warping method is patience. Store the record vertically with a bit of pressure on it from both sides (ie. other albums). After a while (like a year or two) it will be straighter and most likely playable. 

Edited by John Tapscott
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Dan, I've heard of people heating records in an oven to flatten them out. But it's always struck me as a bit of a black art -- with lots of potential for things to go wrong. I've never tried it, but I bet there's info out there about it.

 

By the way, John's probably right about it being warped from the factory. I recently purchased a new reissue of Roy Brooks' The Free Slave. It was warped. It's still playable, so I didn't bother returning it. But it still sorta bugs me. :( 

Edited by HutchFan
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I can't help you here. I've never successfully flattened a warped record. I tried the panes of glass in the oven "trick" and it didn't work. It made it better, but the record certainly wasn't flat. If you do try it, you need to be careful that you don't apply too much heat. You want very low heat for several hours. I've heard people using the sun, but that can get as hot as an oven.

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9 hours ago, John Tapscott said:

It was probably warped back in 1979 when it was packaged. That was an awful era for vinyl (shortage of petroleum). Only Japanese LP  pressings could be fully trusted, but some N.A. pressings were OK.  My de-warping method is patience. Store the record vertically with a bit of pressure on it from both sides (ie. other albums). After a while (like a year or two) it will be straighter and most likely playable. 

That's sort of true with dish warp, maybe less so with a fine, jumpy edge warp.

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Strangely, I don't think I've had any major issues with warped records for maybe 30 years, none that I can recall anyway. Maybe my deck arm is tolerant of them? - certainly I do recall issues in the late 70s in particular with those thin pressings that sometimes had to be returned to the shop.

Labels that I recall having regular problems with include  Cadet Argo reissues, US Columbia red label and Inner City. Here in the UK - DJM. Those Blue Note reissue series LPs could be iffy too, come to think of it.

Edited by sidewinder
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My deck arm is surprisingly tolerant too, including edge warps (some of then obviously caused by past localized heat exposure).

I have cured (well, improved significantly so the remaining warp didn't matter anymore) some warps in the past by the method that Kevin Bresnahan describes - careful application of heat (in my case over an electrical heating radiator) so that the record feels not really hot but "hey, this is getting a bit warm" and then storing it horizontally with a couple of phone books (or 10 copies of "Black Beauty White Heat"?? :D) on top. Has worked both on dish warps (relatively straightforward but patience required) and edge warps (difficult and LOTs of patience as well as - sometimes - repeated attempts required).

Strangely, I have seen the opposite happen to me on a 78! A copy of a Nellie Lutcher 78 on Capitol that I had stored upright along with others in one of those wire racks fashionable from the 50s became so warped after a couple (few, really) years' storage that it became unplayable. And not even any heat exposure to blame it on! I've never seen anything like this happen before, though in earlier years I had stored loads of 78s that way (a practice I have given up long ago, though mostly due to lack of storage space).

An attempt at careful straightening/flatteing resulted in a hairline crack. Luckily I got another copy of that one in a bulk purchase some 10 years ago and also have it on vinyl.

 

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So you were one of those too who appreciated that odd combination of sides on double LPs (and more)?

Sides 1 and 4 on one disc, sides 2 and 3 on the other. :D

Or even odder if you spin multiple-LP albums (pulled out the "The Kenton Era" 4-LP box set this afternoon and the spread of the sides is even weirder there. Side 1 back to back with side 8, sides 2 and 7 together, etc.

(Yes I know why this is so but in the world of TODAY's turntables where you don't STACK your LPs this IS odd ...;))

 

 

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Oh yeah, I was pissed when they started doing LP sets where you had to change the sides manually.

The again, my folks were  one to put on a stack of LPs and just let them play for ambient musicnoise, about as close you could come to todays' "random" on today's digital devices. 15-20 minutes of any record at any time, then on to something else.

Stacking, bad for records, I get it, and 20 lb. tracking force, certainly an abomination, but in spite of all that, records got played, music was heard, and here we all still are, and all those records still play!

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The really odd thing was that they must have sold record CHANGER turntables by the TRAINLOAD in the U.S. because almost all the double (or more) LP sets I ever came across (and even multiple EP sets) were U.S. pressings (not just from the 50s but up to 70s pressings) whereas I hardly ever saw any German, U.K. or French pressings of double LPs sets arranged like that. Although record changers were marketed widely here too (judging by period radio dealer catalogs and by what you still find at garage sales).

As for those records still playing, a friend still uses his 50s record changer turntable (in keeping with most of the other furniture in their apartment) to spin his (mostly more recently pressed) vinyl, often putting them on in stacks of 3 or 4, and each year at his birthday party I cringe every time they ask me to "deejay" (i.e. to change the platters on that thing ...) :rolleyes:

Edited by Big Beat Steve
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Dude, they sold record players as furniture, not as turntables! "Consoles". They weren't for playing records, they were for decoration and endless background lifestyle accessories. The only reason we had that Silvertone was that my folks were, as they say, "thrifty", shaped by the Great Depression and not having a real "living room" until way later into the game.

But yeah, record player/radio/TV consoles were quite aspirational for several decades here. They could be total shit as far as audio/video quality, but they looked like prosperity, and you know what they say about people hearing with their eyes...

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Never had success de-warping. I think it takes "Star Trek" technology. In fact, wasn't there an episode where the Enterprise ends up going back in time to the late '60s on earth and they meet some fanatic jazz record collector who turns out to be the unwitting pawn in anevil  alien plot to destroy the contemporary Federation by changing history? If I recall correctly, there's a shoot-out in the collector's apartment and all of his pristine Blue Notes get warped from the heat of the phaser battle. Right after Kirk and Spock destroy the aliens' computers with double talk and before they use a slingshot effect to get back to the 23rd Century, Mr. Scott figures out a way to de-warp all the sides in the engine room using anti-matter. 

Or maybe I'm confusing that episode with something else. Ahead, warp factor 1, Mr. Sulu.

 

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3 hours ago, Mark Stryker said:

 Never had success de-warping. I think it takes "Star Trek" technology. In fact, wasn't there an episode where the Enterprise ends up going back in time to the late '60s on earth and they meet some fanatic jazz record collector who turns out to be the unwitting pawn in anevil  alien plot to destroy the contemporary Federation by changing history? If I recall correctly, there's a shoot-out in the collector's apartment and all of his pristine Blue Notes get warped from the heat of the phaser battle. Right after Kirk and Spock destroy the aliens' computers with double talk and before they use a slingshot effect to get back to the 23rd Century, Mr. Scott figures out a way to de-warp all the sides in the engine room using anti-matter. 

Or maybe I'm confusing that episode with something else. Ahead, warp factor 1, Mr. Sulu.

 

No, that's the right episode, I remeber the score:

 

 

 

 

 

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11 hours ago, JSngry said:

Dude, they sold record players as furniture, not as turntables! "Consoles". They weren't for playing records, they were for decoration and endless background lifestyle accessories. The only reason we had that Silvertone was that my folks were, as they say, "thrifty", shaped by the Great Depression and not having a real "living room" until way later into the game.

But yeah, record player/radio/TV consoles were quite aspirational for several decades here. They could be total shit as far as audio/video quality, but they looked like prosperity, and you know what they say about people hearing with their eyes...

Not any different here (see below). :D But regardless of what "furniture" the record players were put into, record CHANGERS semed to be the thing (and seemed to meet a demand), and apparently the US were more faddish in that respect if they continued to press double LPs for changers well into the 70s.

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15 hours ago, Mark Stryker said:

Never had success de-warping. I think it takes "Star Trek" technology. In fact, wasn't there an episode where the Enterprise ends up going back in time to the late '60s on earth and they meet some fanatic jazz record collector who turns out to be the unwitting pawn in anevil  alien plot to destroy the contemporary Federation by changing history? If I recall correctly, there's a shoot-out in the collector's apartment and all of his pristine Blue Notes get warped from the heat of the phaser battle. Right after Kirk and Spock destroy the aliens' computers with double talk and before they use a slingshot effect to get back to the 23rd Century, Mr. Scott figures out a way to de-warp all the sides in the engine room using anti-matter. 

Or maybe I'm confusing that episode with something else. Ahead, warp factor 1, Mr. Sulu.

 

Any connection  to the "WARP DRIVE" they mentioned in those Star Trek episodes? :D

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