Warping vinyl

i once (=years ago) tried to 'straighten' a Dizzy Gillespie album, held it under real heavy weights an' all, like for weeks - to ABSOLUTELY no avail

...but i've heard of folks who've eagerly engaged in some SERIOUS abracadabra-techniques -- li'l-steamin-and-li'l-heatin-&-between-the-glassplates-puttin' sort of things ...never saw with my own eyes any record that had been 'rectified' in such a manner, tho
...but did hear of several good-willin' experiments gone horribly wrong (keywords: 'liquid vinyl', 'horrenduous stench', 'heart-attacked parents', 'messed-up Persian rugs', andsoweiter&etcetera)

NO, i AIN'T making it all up, either; i 'appen to come from a geo-ideological time-frame wherein, in me yoof, 'western vinyl' was oftentimes sighted rather less frequently than yer proverbial 'fernbloom on the Midsummer eve', so, erm --

Anna, why doncha jus' blue-tack a coin to the cartridge, for one more time, and make yerself a cd-r or something?

..and most importantly, what's the name of the album (so we can all take cheap shots about you wasting time trying to fix up that stikin' Nick Gilder record).

Aaaaaah, but was it one of the early pressings of their first album which had the cover with the crappy oil painting of the band apparently indulging in some sort of mediaeval feast 'though Dave? Believe it or not, that ones actually worth a few bob now apparently!

Alright, I have some records, thankfully not warped, but where the hole in the centre is noticeably larger than the centrepin in the turntable, thereby making the record far more difficult to mix. Is there anyway to somehow correct this by filling it in with something, or something of the sort?

are you DJing?

Because if your just home listening you could use a record clamp but obv that is more work to get on and off

Yeah, I'm DJ'ing.

I was also meaning to ask about record clamps, smaller, easy to put on/take off ones (I've seen DJ's use them before). Do these help much with warped records? How much money do these usually run for?

use stickers to resize the hole. place warped vinyl between 2 pieces of glass and leave it in the sun.

Stickers. . . that's a great idea, thanks.

Awwww, actually, since the problem is with these fancy-pants records putting stickers in the middle wouldn't be so good (they don't even have labels on the vinyl.

sure it would. i'm thinking of those thin rectangular stickers. rip a small pice and fold it through the hole so you have half of it on one side and half on the flipside. it's hard to explain what i'm talking about but i've used the technique myself and it works.

i have a Falco LP that is super warped. anyone have luck flattening a record in an oven at low heat?

My father in law left my brand new Caretaker ltd edition gold LPs sitting in the sun earlier this summer and now they're ruined. Yay!

Adam, I would not advise the "heat application" method in even the most dire circumstances. It requires super precise monitoring and you will only get good at it through trial and error. The first time you attempt it, you will not be successful. In my experience, two pieces of large glass and a sunny day is the better way to apply the heat method.

But, even then, it's still not very advisable. Because, even though it may "fix" the warp, it will, ultimately, cause more damage.

Look at it like this. . .

The grooves on the vinyl are like jagged mountains:

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

The needle needs to get between these to "read" the frequencies. If you apply heat, it may fix the larger structural damage of the record, but it melt the grooves in ways that you can't see, but you will be able to hear. If the grooves I illustrated above are fine and undamaged, the grooves after the heat application method will look more like:

mλmⱱmmλmⱱmmλmⱱm

And with the needle unable to reach the full length of the grooves, you will get a lot of white noise static. And, if you think about it, this makes sense, as the needle is only partially able to translate those frequencies, so the reception loses its fidelity.

I'm sorry to say, but if you have anything other than a dish warp, your album may be unplayable.

have heard good things about this:

http://vinylflat.com/vinylflatproducts.html

I think this software might be able to recover the recording if you can play it back (but it won't actually fix the record): http://www.celemony.com/en/capstan

OMG just saw the price for that. Nvm

i've seen videos of people using the glass + heat method, but they've put sheets of card inside the glass/vinyl sandwich to prevent the grooves getting squished. no idea whether this works or not

i have about twenty warped records i'd love to flatten, so maybe i might experiment with the lower value ones of those

one thing i never understood though is that often when a record warps, it's because it has expanded due to heat - the surface area increases and there's no way of fitting this into the circumference other than deforming into a third dimension. when you squash it flat again, where does this added surface area go? i guess the record becomes less round?

that vinyl flattener is too expensive to own personally, but I'd love it if my local shop bought one and offered it as a service for $5 per record or something

yeah someone I know has one and does exactly that

if it works, would make sense for use on own inventory as well. thing would pay for itself. probably best to indicate you've done it somehow, though.

these things are supposed to be the best but they're even pricier:

http://www.analogueseduction.net/category-631/orb-df-01i-high-end-audio-vinyl-lp-record-flattener.html

think a shop near me has one and you can pay per squish but most of my wonky records probably aren't even worth the few quid they'd charge to do it

£2,000 for this one - you could buy a lot of records for that:

http://www.analogueseduction.net/furutech-vinyl-lp-flatteners/furutech-df-2-lp-record-flattener.html

hmmm, maybe if I run crysis on an old dell laptop and sandwich the record between the keyboard and screen...

how rare is this... Falco LP?

I don't think any heat application method is ultimately a good idea because of the reasons I stated above. Just because you can't see the grooves being melted down from clearly defined edges to rounded out, damaged grooves doesn't mean it's not happening. I've done the heat method more times than I can remember and every single time, the record would play through the previously unplayable warp, but with a noticeably increased amount of white surface noise. Not an even trade, in my opinion.

agreed, if I had to do it I would use one of the devices linked

thanks for the advice all. the record was so warped that there really wasn't any danger in warping it further (it already doesn't play) so i left it in an oven for an hour at low heat. it flattened out quite a bit, not completely, but it's a start, i made progress and at least it didn't completely melt. but the bits where it is most warped are on the edge of the record (Rock Me Amadeus on start of side one) so it's still not playable from the start. if i ever have any luck getting it to play ill report here!

Might just be better cutting your losses and seeking out another copy at this point.

they're practically giving it away at https://www.discogs.com/Falco-Falco-3/master/66093