[78-L] quality control problems

[David Lennick]

I find so many records to be off center that I NEVER play anything without a 
raised mat so I have enough room to center it. Even lacquers can be off center, 
which I find amazing..must have something to do with the pin on the cutting 
table having enough wiggle room for the disc to be a bit off.

As for wrong labels, reversed labels, same label both sides et al..you got a year?

dl

On 9/21/2011 7:39 AM, neechevoneeznayou at gmail.com wrote:
> I know 45s were made with hot levels to help hide the quality of the
> vinyl. They wore faster but were intended for a market that would listen
> to a song for a few months and then move on to something new. It's the
> nature of the pop music industry overall I suppose.
>
> Of course off center records and crummy surfaces are not unique to any
> format, 78s included. I suspect the out of round issue is the result of
> a warped record being flattened out. At least, that has been my
> experience with 78s. Could it be a matter of a lacquer master shrinking
> and slipping on the substrate? Usually that kind of flaw is seen on old
> lacquers and has developed over time, not on a freshly cut record going
> to the bath to be plated for immediate pressing. Off-center center holes
> is more an issue of degree than right or wrong.
>
> I have rarely seen a pressed 78 record with reversed labels, and I don't
> recall that I have ever seen one with the wrong label, but I know it has
> happened, and we have discussed it on the list some time ago.
>
> joe salerno
>
>
> On 9/21/2011 2:04 AM, Rod Brown wrote:
>> Hey 78ers,
>>
>> I was digitizing a short stack of Fats Domino records for a client last
>> night.
>>
>> (Yes, I know: "...rock 'n' roll and other children's records," thank you Mr.
>> Lehrer. I didn't appreciate that crack when I was a teenager. A joke which
>> has aged well, It's a lot funnier to me now that I'm 58.)
>>
>> I was surprised by how many of these Imperial records had pressing defects.
>> But maybe this is typical for the genre?
>>
>> There were seven of these discs, and three of the fourteen sides had to be
>> elevated on mats, free of the spindle, to allow for centering. On several
>> others, the grooves were concentric to the spindle hole, but weren't quite
>> as perfectly circular as one would wish. Judging by the way the cartridge
>> would twitch laterally as a record spun, the grooves were out of round,
>> evincing either a flat spot or an eccentricity. One of the records had the
>> correct labels, but on the opposite sides from where they belonged, a defect
>> I've hardly ever seen in the vinyl LP world. Come to think of it, I'm
>> surprised this doesn't happen more often.
>>
>> I'd be interested to read about record pressing quality control. I imagine
>> it must have been a manpower-intensive process, back when. Are there reviews
>> of the topic that anyone might like to share?
>>
>> Best,
>> Rod
>> _______________________________________________
>> 78-L mailing list
>> 78-L at klickitat.78online.com
>> http://klickitat.78online.com/mailman/listinfo/78-l
>>
>