[78-L] Record torture

[David Lennick]

Tim has answered his own question there..when British pressings (non-laminated) 
stay in Britain, they take on moisture. When they're shipped new to North 
America and re-sleeved and stored in a dry environment, they're quiet forever, 
as DB and I have found many times. (It's also been suggested that better 
shellac was used for the exports..not sure if that was true.)

dl

On 1/6/2012 2:41 PM, Tim Huskisson wrote:
> I never realised in the past how detrimental to the playing surface of 78
> records the effects of damp, moisture and temperature can be.
> Of course common sense should tell us that laminated records are made of
> layers of different materials. Each material has its own properties and will
> expand or contract at different rates with temperature changes. Any
> lamination cracks or indeed any place on the record where the surface isn't
> completely sealed will be susceptible to penetration by damp or
> condensation.
>
> But non-laminated 78s can be affected less obviously. I've noticed that many
> of my (even visually, E+) records (particularly 1920s era British HMV's)
> suffer from excessive 'frying bacon' crackle on playing. I'd always presumed
> that this was simply a result of the technology of the period. But some are
> worse than others, and I've noticed that the reason would seem to be the
> presence of tiny bubbles on the surface. You need a magnifying glass to see
> them, but they are definitely present on the noisier records. I can only
> assume that decades of exposure to the British climate has caused this -
> or... in the past they have been stored in damp surroundings.
>
> Regards
>
> Tim Huskisson
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: 78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com
> [mailto:78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com] On Behalf Of DAVID BURNHAM
> Sent: 06 January 2012 19:05
> To: 78-L at 78online.com
> Subject: [78-L] Record torture
>
> Not having anything better to do the other day, I decided to torture a
> record.  We were experiencing the coldest day of the season, (-16 degrees
> C.), so I took a standard Victor 78 rpm record in excellent condition and
> placed it naked in a box.  I then placed it in my back yard.  The box would
> shield it from wind and precipitation but would not protect it from the
> cold.  The box was white so it wouldn't absorb any heat from the sun.  I
> wanted as much as possible to simulate the situation that the records in my
> outdoor storage units experience.  I have stored records in my garage for
> years but one and a half walls of the garage abut the house so some heat
> comes from that.  This record suffered further because I took it directly
> from the warm house to the cold outdoors, (the heat variance in the units is
> gradual), and then a couple of days later brought it directly back into the
> warm house.  The record survived with flying colours!  No damage
> whatsoever!  So I guess extreme cold and rapid temperature changes don't
> hurt 78s after all.
>
> If we have another cold spell, this record may spend some more time in the
> box, because -16 isn't by any means the coldest temperature Toronto
> experiences in a normal winter!
>
> db
> _______________________________________________