Sticky residue on Apollo Dubs

[jjgolden]

Until Apollo remedies the problem...
Has anybody come up with an effective way to reduce or remove the residue left behind from the edge guards on the 12" lacquer dubs?
It's right in the lead in area of the discs and wreaks havoc with chip pickup let alone clients playback needles. I usually drop the head later and extend the lead in to get around it, but on a 100% finish side I need all the real estate I can get.

Thanks for any info,
JJG

[gold]

I have never noticed a residue left by the edge guards. The outer edges are always rough though. When I cut a dub I do a manual head drop and wait about half way through the lead in to drop it.

I just took a look at the batch of 12" dubs I got in a few days ago. Sure enough there was some residue. I guess I never noticed because I avoid the outer edge like the plague.

[andybee]

send them back and normally they have to send you better ones.
this is usually not acceptable for cutting, even it is a dub.
can damage the stylus, so be careful.
maybe it is possible, to sand it away and the polish the surface... but
I don´t know if that works proper and with what kind of sanding papers etc.

[jjgolden]

Thanks for the reply's.
I'll mention it again to them.
Some cases are worse than other, but it's been consistently there.
It's gummy, so sandpaper doesn't work to well there. I tried scooting it off with some pith wood
and that helped but is very time consuming.

Ok, I'll post again if I find anything new info here.

Best,

JJG

[concretecowboy71]

I had a rough time getting a refund on defective lacquers a while back. They made me send photos and the send the actual lacquers back to them! It was a bummer.

Since then, they have been pretty cool.

What I have noticed on the edges is the purple band sticking to the edge and pulling off some of the coating when I remove the purple band.

Also have been getting a lot of plates with pretty large ripples in the finish as well as a lot of chipping around the center post hole.

[EmAtChapterV]

I'm having the same problem with the edge gunk, and chipping at the center hole. One dub even had a big bubble partway through one side. I start my lead-in a little further in than normal to be safe, and the center clamp on a Rek-O-Kut seems to chew up the label area a bit anyways. (There will be a label over it once it's done.)

[gold]

Also have been getting a lot of plates with pretty large ripples in the finish as well as a lot of chipping around the center post hole.

I've been seeing a lot of this too. On some, the wavy side will be marked good and the other side will be okay. Someone is not looking very carefully.

The peeling at the center sucks because if a piece gets on the cutting area it's very difficult to remove without making a mark.

[concretecowboy71]

Yes, sometimes the chunks are hard to even blow off with compressed air.

Maybe they just are not prepared for increased demand.

The other day a piece that came from the center hole was stuck to my platter. I was getting a strange noise in my test cuts that continued until I found the piece and cleaned it off.

Best I can figure is vacuum was leaking from under the lacquer and causing the noise.

[dietrich10]

I never need that space on edge so like Paul I do ignore

However the new paper they are using on the top of a batch of lacquers has been leaving tiny pieces all over the first few 14" in the box lately. A few times had a few tiny pieces stuck on the lacquers.
Box yesterday did not use this paper luckily

[boogievan]

Please post affected batch codes. We're possibly seeing this, but there results are only partly similar. Mostly the right heat and position can be found. But it seemed to used to be more effortless.

- Tim E.

[EmAtChapterV]

My batch is D13001.

[concretecowboy71]

T13003 on my last box.

This box was back to the one sheet of thick paper instead of the two sheets of thinner stuff.

I do like the smiley face stickers however....nice touch!

Have a Nice Day!

[jjgolden]

D13002 here.
I'm into about 10 so far.
With the exception of the sticky residue,this batch has been ok as far as bumps and other defects so far.
I would assume the thinner paper is for offsetting cost. I'd rather see a thinner paper than pay more for the discs...

[opcode66]

It would be awesome if someone from Apollo actually cut records and followed these posts... Would be a more symbiotic relationship. Not so say that I've had any issues with Apollo!!! I've had none really. One small misshap which was corrected immediately. Overall, I think they do fantastic work and have great support. But, it would be good for them to get some direct feedback.

[jjgolden]

It's my understanding that they have a vms-70 that is used for noise QC checks only.
I hope the info in this post isn't interpreted by them (If they are reading) as any kind of bashing on Apollo. Considering
they supply the entire cutting community, they are doing a decent job. It's up to us, the users to give them honest and constructive
feedback on how the discs are working for us. I believe they have in many cases and will reciprocate that honesty.

[Apollo]

Hi Guys,
I appreciate all your comments and am looking for a way to be more active on this forum. I have been in contact with Steve regarding being more involved setting up communication channels for the industry. It may take a while to get it working, but I feel it is important to have open lines of communication. We have spent an incredible amount of time and resources in the last few years to improving our systems and products to help insure we can provide you with the best products available. Of course producing an organic product we will still have issues from time to time.
I apologize upfront for some of the recent issues and will try to explain a few of them here to help as best I can.
The chips we believe were from a dull punch. We were not seeing the problem in our quality checks before we sent them out. We have since sharpened the punch and have implemented a more stringent inspection. Unfortunately there are some boxes out there that will still have this problem. Please set the affected discs aside and let us know so we can replace them for you.
Paper lint on discs was caused by a change in paper suppliers. The paper was ordered to specification but was not even close to what it should be. It was not supposed to be sent out but the packers ended up using some of it in production. It has since been removed.
The wave is a combination of a few things, one was that we had bearings on our feed belt that were sticking. We have changed out all of the feed belt bearings and also changed carriers to make sure they are perfectly flat going into coating.
The sticky-ness is a result of a change in the way we had to pack our discs. We recently changed the size of spacers in between the discs to help prevent damage from shipping shock. After complaints of dished lacquers, it was determined that the shipping companies were dropping the boxes and causing them to dish from the shock. Since we could not retrain the shipping companies, we were able to resolve this by using thinner spacers so the energy from a drop would not transfer though the discs. This also causes the lacquers to be a bit closer together and thus they actually soften a little when they are shipped sealed to you all. Moving forward we will increase curing on lacquers before they ship and also will be removing the outer cellophane wrap from the Masters so the discs can still breath in shipping.
(Most of you probably already know this next tidbit. As a general rule of thumb, if you take any lacquer right out of the box and try to cut, they may have graying of the grooves and possible chip pick up issues. If they are aired out for a day or two, they will cut much better. It is always good practice to air out, or normalize the discs before cutting.)
We do have a VMS 70 and cut a silent groove and test every batch of lacquer produced for chip pick up, noise floor and ticks and pops over a wide spectrum. We do cut modulated grooves for a multitude of reasons, mostly that we could never be very good at it because we do not deal with it on a day to day basis like you all do. We do have several engineers we rely on for technical testing of modulated groves and plating.
Hope this helps a bit.
Terry

[opcode66]

AWESOME!!!! Thanks for the information!

Really good to see a post from you all. We look forward to having more of a dialog with you via the Trolls site.

I know I speak for myself and others when I say THANK YOU for keeping the light on over there! We rely on your commitment to quality and the fantastic products that you all continue to improve upon. Thank you for your hard work and attention to detail and for making record cutting possible in this modern age!

[Bonati]

Some of the same problems here. The main ones that plague me are 1. chipped center holes, and 2. the smeary oval blemish appearing around the center area. This last order has been the worst batch of lacquers I've ever had. Batch code on current box says A13011. Apollo has always been great to deal with though.

[flozki]

Same problems here. and i was last week i a cutting studio in berlin. same there.
in the middle some pieces broken out that can lay around anywhere on the laquer.
the edge is terrible and sometimes even fingerprints....

and this not on dubs but on 14inch master laquers....

hope you guys get back to decent quality control and also get an new middle hole puncher.

also i noticed smaller middle washers.

i think there is no way we can send back bad laquers, because transport is twice time more expensive than buying new ones.

[concretecowboy71]

Great to see Apollo on here and responding to concerns.

Always interesting to hear information directly from the source instead of dealing in speculation.

Thanks for posting!