The Secret Society of Lathe Trolls

grooveguy · Joined: 22 Jun 2006 Posts: 40

You guys have probably seen this, it's Part I of a couple of YouTube videos about making vinyl records... from the aluminum blanks to the pressings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUGRRUecBik

What impressed me in this one is the way Transco coats blanks with lacquer. I swear it makes me drool just to watch that stuff flow! They make it look so easy, too. So why do they cost so much?

JayDC · Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 1:05 am Post subject:

I dunno..

Why is the Sirius XM merger taking so long, but transco and apollo can merge and create a monopoly.

The thing that gets me, the price increase after the merger.

With no alternative, I guess I really can't bitch.

grooveguy · Joined: 22 Jun 2006 Posts: 40

I recall hearing not all that long ago that someone was setting up to recoat aluminum blanks; anyone have more info? There are a lot more 'plastics' available today than back when secret-formula lacquer was the only coating. People on this list describe their experiences cutting what they call vinyl and other nebulous materials, but how about someone sum-up the findings thus far?

JayDC · Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 5:49 pm Post subject:

I dunno..

I have a couple of one sided vinyls and a diamond stylus. I have yet to get the balls to try it. I need to rig heat to the diamond. On the presto, the power supply for the heat is AC, but could you use DC and get the same effect? I have many power supplies that will do about 12vdc, but to do 12vac I'd need to hit the hack shack to get a transformer.

I'd like to get into cutting some of the plastics, and I guess I could, but it's all about a circle, and I'm not sure how to cut them properly.

I guess I could just slack off and cut squares.

Doug 6N · Joined: 21 May 2007 Posts: 62 Location: Washington

Hi:

I'm using a variable DC power supply to supply power to heat stylus. Works great plus. I can hook up the cutting head to the amp input and listen to difference in noise while adjusting the heat. It's amazing how much difference the heated sylus makes. And for the old hard blanks I can tun it up some more and they cut just fine also. Smile

Doug

PS. Typically I'm running about 550ma current and up to 750ma for the harder blanks.

Aussie0zborn · Joined: 11 Mar 2006 Posts: 65 Location: Australia

Hang on...so Transco and Apollo have merged?????? Is this correct?

I visited the Transco factory when I was a customer some years ago and the lacquer comes to them pre-mixed by the lacquer supplier in 40 gallon drums. All they do is coat the aluminium discs as you see in the video.

They also had a service where local studios could send back their used lacquer discs. I saw them placed in boiling water and the lacquer layer comes off, ready to be coated with new lacquer. This service, I was told, was only available to local customers as the cost of getting the discs back was low and they were generally considered to still be flat and therefore useable.

So this mention of someone setting up to re-coat old discs, well its been done before. The trick is to have the right lacquer formulation so once you have that you may as well hook up with an aluminium disc supplier and make you own from scratch.

cuttercollector · Joined: 11 Jun 2006 Posts: 259 Location: San Jose, CA

Speaking of "from scratch", is there any final word on whether there is still a company in Japan (or elswhere) producing lacquers?
If your intent is mastering for pressing, you need to stick with the standards the pressing plants know how to work with, but for one off cuts, what is now available? I have yet to see a list here of all sources in one place. Vestax came and went, the Vinylrecorder guy, from what I have read here. only sells to people who buy his system - so does that leave only Apollo as the other choice?

motorino · Joined: 24 Aug 2005 Posts: 195

well...i believe stand in a good way.....the lacquer formulation its simple, nitrocellulosic acetate......

thanks Aussie for you experience!!

Aussie0zborn · Joined: 11 Mar 2006 Posts: 65 Location: Australia

MDC is said to be a good brand if it is still around. However, the most consistent quality came from Pyral (France) where every lacquer disc cut quietly, the swarf was sucked away efficiently and they always plated properly.

Isn't there a Korean company that makes blank vinyl discs for cutting??

Dub Studio · Joined: 20 Jun 2006 Posts: 50 Location: Bristol

As far as I gather, Apollo used to supply Transco with the plates in the first place, and then Transco would coat them in-house. So really the merger isn't all that important in the grand scheme of things. I guess if someone really wanted to coat their own they could buy them uncoated from Apollo just like Transco did? MDC are still going aren't they? Although I think they are much more expensive, and (possibly for that reason) considered better quality?

diamone · Joined: 09 Aug 2008 Posts: 21 Location: Silicon Valley

Or if you are going to have a diamond cutter stylus anyway, just ditch the whole lacquer business and get the double-thickness DMM blanks made in Germany.

The normal ordinary regular-thickness DMM blanks like what you used to find at Marcussen Mastering or Sterling or Europadisc, can be noisy sometimes, being that their grooves have to be so shallow.

The German ones however like the one used to cut the German RCA pressing of the CHESS Concept Album from 1984 are double-thickness DMM enabling grooves as deep and clean as a lacquer.

Look at Side 4 of that album especially, from a visual standpoint, and then play it on a good linear turntable next to the lacquer-cut version and you see what I mean.

Then play that next to the Japanese pressing of the same thing on a normal-thickness DMM.

Just remember DMM needs a 30KHz signal riding along on top of the music when mastering to keep the cutter stylus moving, even during silent passages, or the cutting stylus will get hung up, destroying the blank.
_________________
2 Kinds of Men/Records: Low Noise & Wide Range. LN is mod. fidelity, cheap, & easy. WR is High Fidelity & Abrasive to its' Environment. Remember that when you encounter a Grumpy Engineer. ( Very Happy

)

Dub Studio · Joined: 20 Jun 2006 Posts: 50 Location: Bristol

What sort of lathe do you need for DMM?

Aussie0zborn · Joined: 11 Mar 2006 Posts: 65 Location: Australia

You need a Neumann VMS84 with SX84 cutterhead to cut DMM blanks.

I dont understand the bit about "double thickness" DMM blanks and I think the writer misunderstands the concept. The DMM blank is a stainless steel disc coated with copper. The copper is formed by electroforming (for our European freinds: galvanosplasty). Electroforming is the process used to process lacquers to make master/mothers/stampes (for our Eauropean friends: fathers/mothers/stampers).

The thickness of the copper coating on the stainless steel disc is determined by the amount of time the blank disc is left in the electroforming tank. So any maker of DMM blanks had the choice to make a "double thickness" coating of copper on the disc if so desired. However, the depth of cut was indeed shallow but it never affected playback. While most DMM cuts are not very loud, the reduction of surface noise and the increased signal to noise ratio simply means that you have to turn up the volume.

As for a 30kHz signal..... why exactly is this necessary????

So folks, just becasue yo uhave a dimaond stylus, you cannot cut into DMM blanks unless you have a VMS84/SX84.

flozki · Joined: 19 May 2006 Posts: 53 Location: switzerland

hello
we did a lot of dmm cutting for years..
and i tried always to go to the limit with deep grooves.
but more than 80 um groove with was very hard to achieve.
at 100 um the machine lifted the cutterhead.
so we had to modify the cutting lathe...but the 2nd problem was the thickness of the dmm chip. if it was too thick you couldnt remove the chip. and then
you loose a dmm blank.sometimes the stylus was destroyed as well..

so very difficult to cut fat deep grooves.i would say normally 80-90 um.
and the surface noise increases dramatically with deeper grooves...
when i cut laquers, i normally cut 100-120 um for 45 masters... no problem.
so still a big difference.

the thickness of the teldec dmm blanks was 100um. theoreticaly you could go then to 120-150 no problem, but the chip can not be reomved.

the 30khz oscillation was a passive effect, because of relation of cutting angle, velocity and stylus... it was not mixed from a oscillator.
but it helps to cut the laquers...

most of the dmm cuting houses do very thin grooves. 40-50 sometimes 60um).. but they can pack a lot of minutes per side....
thats the main application for the dmm....

diamone · Joined: 09 Aug 2008 Posts: 21 Location: Silicon Valley

Maybe the supposed double-thickness DMM was just an experiment for a few years in the mid-80's. In New York, I remember them being like half-over-again cost to the regular DMM copper blank, which in itself was considerably more expensive than a lacquer.

Of course with that kind of money tied up, they'd never let the Jr. staff breathe on one, nevermind handle one, nevermind try to cut on one. But we got invited into the mastering suite to cut lacquers of the same material at the same time the more experienced engineers were cutting on DMM.

But if the bigger chip or stylus breakage was an issue, maybe that's why they only used `em a handful of times for like big classical titles from RCA or Columbia whose accounts could afford to toss a $300 blank or a $200 diamond cutting stylus if one broke.
_________________
2 Kinds of Men/Records: Low Noise & Wide Range. LN is mod. fidelity, cheap, & easy. WR is High Fidelity & Abrasive to its' Environment. Remember that when you encounter a Grumpy Engineer. ( Very Happy

)