[78-L] Repairing cracked records

[Sammy Jones]

I wonder if this method will work with a lacquer disc that has a lacquer crack.  I've got a Lux Radio Theater show from the '30s that has a lacquer crack for the first five or so minutes.  It will not track over the crack unless I use my finger to nudge the stylus.  That gets tiresome after 33 1/3 times every minute for five minutes!

Obviously the metal substrate won't soften as a shellac will, but the grease pencil part sounds interesting...

Sammy Jones

Malcolm wrote: 
I had been holding some other similarly
> cracked, but 
> common records for awhile to test on and finally came up
> with a decent 
> method using a heat gun, grease pencil and razor.
> 
> First I would lay the record on a flat surface with the
> heat gun on one hand 
> and the grease pencil in the other. The heat gun will
> soften the pencil 
> enough to drag along the surface of the crack. Be as
> careful as you can not 
> to get too much of the pencil wax into the actual grooves
> as you can easily 
> make it noisier than it was with the exposed crack.
> After I have covered the crack, I shave the excess with a
> straight razor to 
> get the wax & the top of grooves at the same level.
> I then apply some more light heat to slightly soften the
> wax again & bring 
> it over to an old victrola to re-cut the groove through the
> wax.
> Don't use too much heat at this last step or it will melt
> the wax into the 
> grooves causing noisy playback. Once the wax has dried,
> there is no need to 
> use glue.
> 
> Of course it will not play like a new record, but it will
> turn a nasty 
> thumping crack into a lightly ticking one. This also only
> really works if 
> the crack is big! If you can not see light through the
> crack, applying the 
> wax will only make it worse.
> 
> I also tried epoxy once (read some other online tutorials)
> and completely 
> destroyed the record I was working on - so I don't
> recommend it! The wax is 
> somewhat forgiving & epoxy is not!
> 
> Malcolm in GA
>