Pressing New Shellac

[winsleydale]

I have been thinking about record pressing lately. I would be willing to bet that most everybody on here is thinking about, or at some point has thought about, what it would take to press new shellac. Well, I cannot be the only one to have had records break on me. My thought is, there ought to be a special dump for only broken record bits. I don't know how it would be done; I'm just speculating. But, I feel like if in the future, there was a big store of broken shellac records, the pieces could be melted down and new music could be pressed into them.

Again, just a thought.

[De Soto Frank]

It would be nice to have new issues of shellac discs, capable of being played on acoustic phonographs, but it's not an easy or cheap process...

The economics would be more challenging than the method...



Here's how they did it at the "dog-house" in Camden...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zL53iEHf_0

[winsleydale]

So in theory, if one already possessed the shellac mixture itself, it could be sent to a regular pressing plant along with masters, which are made by several companies... But, it would be expensive.

[edisonphonoworks]

It will still take some experimentation, but new Shellac 78s are in the works, but it will still be awhile. And new Diamond Discs too!

[winsleydale]

It will still take some experimentation, but new Shellac 78s are in the works, but it will still be awhile. And new Diamond Discs too!

TELL ME MORE

[Cody K]

I basically like the idea of massive collection of broken records, because so many of them do end up in the landfill, even unbroken. I picture a gigantic pot full of bubbling black ooze, from which hundreds of thousands of 78s are pressed in a never-ending twenty-four hour cycle. Perhaps there might also be robots. But we can't just go giving our broken records away, adding them to a communal shellac hoard. It sounds dangerously like communism. I want to be paid for my broken records, and paid well! Otherwise why would I break them?

[winsleydale]

Lol, I guess I hadn't thought of that... I'm not for Communism, ask anyone who knows me!

[Victrolacollector]

It will still take some experimentation, but new Shellac 78s are in the works, but it will still be awhile. And new Diamond Discs too!

Will it be new artists or old material?

[edisonphonoworks]

New artists, on Shellac and Diamond discs, but it might be a few years before this happens.

[De Soto Frank]

I imagine there could still be copyright issues involving previously-recorded material...


Gosh it would be swell to have Vince Giordano or Max Raabe on shellac records...