Shellac Record Press - Anyone Ever Seen One?

[Odeon]

Hey - all in favour our beloved records

[Phototone]

A Vinyl press wouldn´t work with the shellac compound. A vinyl record is pressed with c. 9,8 Bar - a shellac record needed 150 Bar! No modern press for vinyl records provide the pressure you need for a shellac record. Unfortunately... The next thing, take a look at the big mills for the shellac compound... It is possible to press a vinyl record with 78 rpm, but , if not somewhere a press and mills for shellac survived, it is almost impossible to see a "modern", real shellac record.

The pressure needed would be adjustable. I still stand by my thoughts that the same presses used for shellac were used for vinyl at the beginning of vinyl, the manually operated presses.

[De Soto Frank]

The presses in use in the Victor film appear to be more modest than that monster by Arndt...

Perhaps there is a way to repurpose an older vinyl press to make shellac discs...


If folks are making cylinders, there should be a way to make 78 discs...


I would think the most challenging aspects would be the recording lathe set-up to create the masters, then the shellac formulation for the disc itself.

The process from master disc to stamper still seems to be the same for 78's and LPs...

[Odeon]

I still stand by my thoughts that the same presses used for shellac were used for vinyl at the beginning of vinyl…

You may right about this – but… maybe they used a old 78 rpm press to make the “new” vinyl records – they simply had to reduce the pressure back in the early 1950s. But – this didn´t work the other way! We have here in Europe two or three companies still making vinyls. All working with old presses from the 1960s, constructed only for vinyl records. These machines are useless for making shellac records, as they are not built for that high pressure in need. Unfortunately again…

You may use (today) any recording lathe able of 78 rpm. Yes, the shellac formulation maybe a little tricky - also the making of it This is an art discontinued some years ago - and all the experience with it has been lost, as the last worker/developer and so on, working with shellac, has died.

Shellac record production 1948 (with parts of the press): Click here

[Odeon]

Making Records by the Pathé Company around 1920. With the last half you see the press: Click here

pathe.png (167.64 KiB) Viewed 2615 times

[CarlosV]

Why would anyone want to make shellack records in our days, other than as an exercise in engineering archeology?

I can understand the modern cylinders made in hard and durable plastic, that we can play in our primitive phonographs with no regrets or fears of wearing out 100-year old recordings on wax, or even blank wax cylinders that can be recorded and become somewhat of a 10-minute entertainment in family gatherings before everyone retires to their ipads and facebooks, but I miss the point of going back to shellack.

[Phototone]

Why would anyone want to make shellack records in our days, other than as an exercise in engineering archeology?

I can understand the modern cylinders made in hard and durable plastic, that we can play in our primitive phonographs with no regrets or fears of wearing out 100-year old recordings on wax, or even blank wax cylinders that can be recorded and become somewhat of a 10-minute entertainment in family gatherings before everyone retires to their ipads and facebooks, but I miss the point of going back to shellack.

Well, I for one, can see the desire to make new shellac records as a desire to have new records that can be played on vintage acoustic gramophones without destruction.

[Phototone]

Just an observation: In the late 1930's and into the 1940's before the introduction of microgroove records, Victor (and maybe Columbia) were making delux Vinyl (transparent red for Victor) editions of records. So was Sears (maybe sourced from Victor). Of course this was after the introduction of jeweled styli on changers that had lightweight (relatively) tone arms with crystal cartridges.

These were made from the same stampers as the shellac editions. Were they made on the same presses? I probably think so, with adjustments to compensate for the differences in a vinyl "puck", as opposed to a shellac "puck".

[edisonphonoworks]

The United Record pressing plant in Nashville, has one manually operated press, and It is for 7 and 10" records. All the rest are automatic presses. The shellac milling process would be the hardest part to work out. The formula for shellac 78s is around shellac, garnet stone, green stone, china clay. This all gets put in a steam heated mixer, and fully combined, then goes into several rollers and comes out in a sheet, that is cut into squares and then labels put on each side. The modern record presses, the steam and pressure are adjustable. I know that you can also make silicone molds of lacquers and pour resin epoxy material in them and make records that can be played on a talking machine.

[De Soto Frank]

So, theoretically, the shellac compound could be milled, mixed, rolled, and cut-into biscuits by a third party, then shipped to the pressing plant for final pressing ?

I believe the way the LP plants do it now starts with pellets of the appropriate plastic material ?


(The economic factor is still the elephant in the room...)