The Hearbreak of Cracked Records?

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Lah Ca
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Re: The Hearbreak of Cracked Records?

Post by Lah Ca »

Hoodoo wrote: Thu Dec 23, 2021 4:32 pm Well, I tried Curt A’s crack repair method using Weldbond, and not only did it work on cracked records, I also managed to put back together records that had pieces broken completely off.
Cool! I look forward to replicating this feat.

Lah Ca
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Re: The Hearbreak of Cracked Records?

Post by Lah Ca »

@Curt A

Thank you so much for the Weldbond tip. :D

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=8860&hilit=broken+record

I have done my first crack repair with a 12" Beniamino Gigli recording.

It was a very tight, very new crack, something that happened spontaneously with the record just sitting there on the platter. I masked off the area around the crack with low adhesive painters tape. Using a sharp tipped bamboo skewer for fine application, I glued the crack up with water diluted Weldbond which was easier to work into the crack as it was so tight. I let it sit for few minutes for it to find its way into the crack as much as possible, Then I cleaned it up with a damp cloth. Then I repeated the process on the other side. Then I removed the painters tape and lightly cleaned both sides again before applying a couple of clamps to the crack.

I let it dry overnight, and then I played it first with one of my homemade bamboo skewer needles. This brought up a bit of fuzz out of the grooves which may have been the thin layer of glue that could not be cleaned off with the damp cloth. Then I played it again with a vintage commercially prepared bamboo needle. This brought up a bit more fuzz but much less than with the first play Then I played it with a soft tone steel needle, which also brought up a bit of fuzz, but again even less than before.

Points of interest:
  • The repair, while not perfect (as in it didn't restore the record to new un-cracked condition), was very successful. On play with the bamboo needles the noise the crack made relative to the music was very quiet. With the steel needle it was louder but not unpleasantly intrusive. And for all needles, there were long stretches of play where the crack was not audible at all.
  • Being a very new and tight crack, the crack became largely invisible after the initial repair but then became visible again after the record was played.
  • There was obviously some internal tension in the record itself. Even with the clamping, it was not possible to get the record entirely flat because the problem is not limited to the crack area. The crack is just where the stress caused the record to give way. It is not much out of flat but it is out.
I wonder if further applications of diluted glue might not fill in the crack a bit more and further reduce the noise it makes during play. I should try this, but maybe not first with this record which I do care about.

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Orchorsol
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Re: The Hearbreak of Cracked Records?

Post by Orchorsol »

I managed to glue a record back together which had broken completely into two pieces across the centre hole: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSrR5UZcDFo
BCN thorn needles made to the original 1920s specifications: http://www.burmesecolourneedles.com

Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCe4DNb ... TPE-zTAJGg?

Lah Ca
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Re: The Hearbreak of Cracked Records?

Post by Lah Ca »

Orchorsol wrote: Wed Jan 19, 2022 4:24 pm I managed to glue a record back together which had broken completely into two pieces across the centre hole: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSrR5UZcDFo
Wow! Great job on the repair. It is a cool record. It must have been a bit of heartbreak to find it cracked in half.

A very nice sounding gramophone, too.

And there's your electrical deck in the background, too.

Lah Ca
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Re: The Hearbreak of Cracked Records?

Post by Lah Ca »

Well I have learned now that records broken through mild physical trauma are much easier to glue up than ones that break because of some internal tensions that would lead to warping in softer media than shellac compound.

With the latter group of broken records, I need to rethink my process of clamping and walking away. Where the clamp jaws touch, the surface of the record comes into alignment nicely, but just because two or three points come into alignment does not mean the rest of the crack does. Perhaps putting the record on a sheet of glass, placing something hard over the crack, and then gently stacking something of considerable weight on top might work better. Or perhaps using non-diluted glue which will have a much faster initial set time (shorter work time and more difficult clean up, too) and then just holding everything in alignment on a sheet of glass as best as possible with full finger force for the 20 to 30 boring minutes needed to get an initial bond that will hold and then switching to clamps for the curing.

Any voices of experience have anything to add here?

Lah Ca
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Re: The Hearbreak of Cracked Records?

Post by Lah Ca »

Another victory for Weldbond ....

From the "damaged records of potential interest" area of my shelves, I chose a 40s Harry James record on the Columbia Label. It had multiple (15 or more) radial fractures, not all of which showed up on the other side of the record. When the record was picked up, it had that broken sound and feel, shellac moving against shellac, not entirely rigid. And yet, it held together, pretty much all in the same plane. It was, however, unplayable, too many cracks. So I spend a great length of time (more than a 40s Swing record is worth), working diluted Weldbond into the fractures. I was not overly zealous about clean up in this case - cosmetics are not an issue with this experiment. I could not clamp it - too many cracks, some cracks too complicated with multiple sub-cracks, but I didn't really need to as the disk lay quite flat on its own, except for one triangular section, which I could not have got a clamp on anyway.

Playing the record with bamboo needles for cleanup of glue sounded awful. Too much glue left behind and the needles were playing the glue. And the record does look a bit of a mess. After a couple of passes with the bamboo needles, I used a steel needle, and it sounded very good and played very well. No noise from the cracks.

Like many records from the era, it is a dance record, with a fast tune on one side and a slow one on the other. I played the fast side first. It was very good with some amazing trumpet pyrotechnics from Mr. James. When I put the second side on, my wife came wandering downstairs, all starry-eyed and romantic at the sound of the music, and just as she walked into the room, the lovely Helen Forrest began to sing.

Major domestic points for me! :D

Thank you, Weldbond!
Last edited by Lah Ca on Wed Jan 26, 2022 5:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Inigo
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Re: The Hearbreak of Cracked Records?

Post by Inigo »

:D :D
Wives are a strong control.
Lucky me that my wife likes happy music, classical, swing, Duke Ellington, George Shearing, etc. Usually she doesn't like those acoustic records that have an interest to us collectors, but that we ourselves understand t they may be too hard for a non-initiated... :D :D
Inigo

Lah Ca
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Re: The Hearbreak of Cracked Records?

Post by Lah Ca »

Inigo wrote: Mon Jan 24, 2022 2:22 pm :D :D
Wives are a strong control.
Lucky me that my wife likes happy music, classical, swing, Duke Ellington, George Shearing, etc. Usually she doesn't like those acoustic records that have an interest to us collectors, but that we ourselves understand t they may be too hard for a non-initiated... :D :D
:D :D :D :D :D

Happy wife, happy life, or so the saying goes.

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Re: The Hearbreak of Cracked Records?

Post by JerryVan »

"It had multiple (15 or more) radial fractures, not all of which showed up on the other side of the record."

Lamination cracks. Seem to be common to Columbia records with paper/cardboard cores. Many of them are silent. Yours appeared to be extensive. The glue apparently filled the gap enough to form a bridge across the void. Cool.

Lah Ca
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Re: The Hearbreak of Cracked Records?

Post by Lah Ca »

JerryVan wrote: Tue Jan 25, 2022 11:17 am Lamination cracks. Seem to be common to Columbia records with paper/cardboard cores.
Thank you for the vocabulary, lamination cracks, and the information about paper/cardboard cores.

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