Vinyl Troubleshooting

Most problems involving records are due to bent/warped records. A bent scratch-record is useless. To my knowledge the bending occurs mostly due to:

  • the usage of shrink-wrapping
  • prolonged exposure to a hot sun or some other heat source

So is it possible to get a record straight again? Some solutions I have encountered are:

  • playing the bent record and heating it up with a hairdryer. Let it cool down, preferably while being pressed by something heavy.
  • placing a bent record inside a thick folded towel. Iron the towel so the record can heat up. When it’s heated put it on your turntable and let it play. When it’s cooled down it will be less bent.
  • placing a bent record between two glass plates (or 2 other ‘straight’ surfaces) and let something heavy rest on top of that. Wait a few hours (?) and your record will be straight.

I have been using the hairdryer method and I place a heavy object on top of the record while it cools down. Results are pretty good. The records hardly ever come out totally straight, but they do take much better scratch-abuse than before the ‘straighting’ proces.

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