Wood will work just fine for this purpose and now I understand the whole thing. Brilliant. Any
doubts about the wood, bake it for a few hours in advance to out-gas whatever you're worried about.

-- Tom Fine

----- Original Message -----
From: "George Brock-Nannestad" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, June 21, 2009 7:07 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Any good tips to flatten warped 78's?


From: Patent Tactics, George Brock-Nannestad

Hi Tom,

you wrote:
>
> MANY THANKS! Not long-winded by any measure, rather it's packed with
> facts.
>
> One question -- why the wooden blocks?

----- I want to heat the top glass plate to the same temperature, but it must
not rest on the record until it is sufficiently supple (a nicer term than
malleable). Some will scorn heating of wood in a preservation environment;
for those I would suggest an inert substitute. In the "urns" that had been
held in the basement of the Paris opera and in which the records were resting
on glass plates, the distance was kept by means of little glass blocks.

Kind regards,


George


> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "George Brock-Nannestad" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Sunday, June 21, 2009 5:30 PM
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Any good tips to flatten warped 78's?
>
>
> From: Patent Tactics, George Brock-Nannestad
>
> Dear all,
>
> by popular request a bit of wind from me:
>
> ----- we want to prevent embedding dust in the record surface, we want to
> avoid marks from the supporting surface, and most of all, we want to avoid
> adhesion to the supporting surface. We also want to prevent heat shock of
> the
> record.
>
> The way I taught the flattening process at the School of Conservation
> required two optical quality glass plates, but float glass window panes
> would
> work. I used hardened glass from salvaged protective sheets that were
> required by law in Denmark in front of 1950s CRTs in televisions sets. We
> cleaned these sheets very well and rubbed them with a polishing substance
> that translates into "whitening", "Paris white" and "Spanish white"
> according
> to the dictionary I needed to consult. The record was first cleaned
> carefully. Then it was placed on the first glass plate, clean surface up,
> label floating (if it was dished). The second glass plate was placed on 3
> small wooden blocks clean surface down and with a clearance to the record.
>
> The glass plates and record were placed in an oven--Steve's environmental
> chamber--that you had previously tested would not under any circumstances
> exceed 80 degrees Celsius at the setting to be used, even during cycling
> of
> the thermostat. This way even a cheap cooking oven would be useable. After
> ½
> hour the temperature will have stabilised, and in many cases the record
> will
> have sunk flat already. Even if it has not sunk completely, you take out
> the
> assembly, remove the wooden blocks and place the second glass plate on the
> record and put the plates with sandwiched record back in the oven. Do take
> a
> second to feel the remaining elasticity by pushing the label--just for the
> experience. Leave another quarter of an hour and then switch off and let
> cool. There are obvious variations once you have gained experience. Lower
> temperature simply means slower going, but you should not venture into
> pushing a bulge when the temperature is below ca. 50 degrees Celsius.
>
> Problematic records are those with an elevated rim and label area, because
> you cannot in a simple manner get them flatter than the difference in
> height,
> unless you use specially cut plates.
>
> The most famous second-hand record dealer in Copenhagen from ca. 1950-1985
> used the sun, and that is the way that I bought my (first) copy of Fini
> Henriques playing the Romance Op. 26 by Johan Svendsen (whom he had known).
> I
> had to wait for a week until he had flattened it for me. I paid for that
> through the nose. A German collector used the heat from an electrical
> blower
> radiator, rotating the record in his hands until it was malleable and then
> put it on a sheet of glass. And then there are those who go the other way
> and
> make flower pots out of shellac records. Shellac is definitely
> thermoplastic;
> oozing comes from cheaper rosin stuff that it is sometimes diluted with,
> and
> shellac has a slight tendency to cross-link (harden irreversibly) with
> time
> and temperature. But I have yet to see a solid-stock shellac 78 that
> cannot
> be flattened. A Columbia laminate record should also be amenable, because
> shellac is used in the core as well, but I have never seen a warped
> Columbia
> of this type. Hit-of-the-Week are virtually impossible to tame - it is all
> thermo-setting, and laminating to a sheet of metal (a lacquer with
> stripped
> off nitro-cellulose) might be the only really good solution, but then you
> lose whatever portrait there is on the reverse.
>
> Vinyl records is a different matter, because their elasticity is much
> larger
> at the temperatures we dare use. However, I am certain that a small
> project
> deliberately warping vinyls and straightening them again is quite
> feasible--a
> lot of vinyl is dirt cheap these days. And the results would be very
> useful.
> Again, the vinyl-saving approaches of the early 1970s with raised rim and
> label will cause problems.
>
> So, I managed to let you get wind of some procedures of straightening
> records. But you knew already.
>
> Kind regards,
>
>
> George
>
>
>
> -------------------------------------------
> Steve Smolian wrote:
>
> > No, George. Wind doesn't work here. Sunlight does.
> >
> > I use a smililar method- plate glass and sunlight.
> >
> > I've tried the environmental chamber route but can't seem to control the
> > cooling-down process well enough to prevent splotching. I'm still
> working
> > on this one.
> >
> > Steve Smolian
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "George Brock-Nannestad" <[log in to unmask]>
> > To: <[log in to unmask]>
> > Sent: Sunday, June 21, 2009 3:45 PM
> > Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Any good tips to flatten warped 78's?
> >
> >
> > > From: Patent Tactics, George Brock-Nannestad
> > >
> > > Hi Tom,
> > >
> > > I would have to write it first, and most probably there are plenty of
> > > knowledgeable persons on the list. I was merely referring to my long-
> > > windedness which at times seem to wind people up. It comes from
> > > associating
> > > with attorneys.
> > >
> > > Kind regards,
> > >
> > >
> > > George
> > >
> > >
> > > Hi George:
> > >>
> > >> Can you send me the treatise off-list?
> > >>
> > >> -- Tom Fine
> > >>
> > >> ----- Original Message -----
> > >> From: "George Brock-Nannestad" <[log in to unmask]>
> > >> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> > >> Sent: Sunday, June 21, 2009 2:39 PM
> > >> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Any good tips to flatten warped 78's?
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> > From: Patent Tactics, George Brock-Nannestad
> > >> >
> > >> > Tom Fine asked:
> > >> >
> > >> >> Anyone got any good recipes to get the warp out of a 78?
> Especially
> > >> tips
> > >> >> that don't involve costly
> > >> >> pieces of gear? Anything a person can do with standard household
> > >> >> objects
> > >> or
> > >> >> appliances?
> > >> >
> > >> > ----- yes, I have, but I am sure nobody wants to read one of my
> long
> > >> > treatises on it.
> > >> >
> > >> > Kind regards,
> > >> >
> > >> >
> > >> > George
> > >> >
> > >