Economical emboss-able clear flexi-blanks idea

[disconnectedinyak]

Ive been doing some testing on a few thin cast plastics for embossing and have stumbled upon a material that is about 10-13 mil thickness, self-adhesive, clear, glossy, and takes a recording pretty well considering what it is.. "Kapco easy-cover" book covers seem to take an embossed groove as well as a CD or better (especially on a cork or other solid mat, of course). According to the Shore-D hardness scale reading 60 to 70, they are a little softer than CD's. They also polish up nicely with turtle-wax to a noise-free finish.
I have made a number of 33 and 45 "flexi-disc" style "picture discs" using mono suitcase-style equipment for a few months and find the results and lack of surface noise quite surprising. I use them by punching the center hole, polish and emboss/record the disc, and then affix the self-adhesive completed recording onto any art I want (or even recycled cardboard items), creating something quite reminiscent of "record on a cereal box".

I would be interested to see the result of using this material with a wider spectrum of recording heads/styli than I have access to at present or any thoughts among the group about this material and materials like this.

kapco1.jpg

[piaptk]

That is pretty interesting. If you want to send me a couple, i can run them on my lathes with dialed in embossing sapphires and very nice MAG mono heads.

[socialroots]

What kind of plastic are these covers? Sounds promising,be cool to hear some audio!

Hey Mr.Dixon,i remember a guy selling a few nos mag heads with original cases some time ago,u wouldnt happen to be the guy that bought up the whole lot,would ya?
Is it true these r the same as the neumann mono heads?
Better than grampian, presto D?
Maximum Respect,
Patrick

[piaptk]

Yeah, I bought them all. They were all very strange impedances, and two were kind of garbage, but the other three are AMAZING. Around the studio, it is pretty unanimous that they sound better than any other head (And I have owned and used more than one of almost every mono head that has ever been made over the past decade plus). We got the other two rewound and cleaned up, but they never quite got there. Gonna hopefully work with Markrob when I'm in Philly in February to see if he can dial them in for us.

[Jccc]

i actually used some Kapco book protector on a zine i did a few years ago.
Being that i work in area full of books. i grabbed some and did some cuts with a diamond on them.

For embossing i got some decent results but you cant really get too deep or else it will start digging in the kapco.

i included a short video of the zine i did with the kapco

[disconnectedinyak]

Piaptk: I'll happily send some over! just PM a mailing address, I can send it plain or punched or whatever is preferred. Absolutely love your work!
Jccc: I am delighted to see more of these are being made! That record looks and sounds awesome! I want to see more records like this "in the wild"..so I am very delighted to see it! I work/audio-daydream at a library that no longer uses these, as paperbacks have become disposable (or re-use fodder perhaps).

OK: I have developed a strange sickness where I am replicating records and music from my collection, co-opting rejected old dime-store record jackets and vogue picture discs as holiday cards; putting all my digital music in monophonic analog form; casually making 7 inch EPs while making a sandwich for lunch; polluting my record collection with thin copies of more songs; even pasting records on rice crispies boxes for a quick chuckle over snap, crackle, and pop.

I added a couple pics of the extent of this (mostly 7-inch) madness, an original for scale in one photo, even a very mixed-up selection of half-speed mastered 33RPM audio from some of the discs I've made, granted the needle on THIS player is worn and old so you hear all the possible noise. New needles and Chinese cartridges seem to track these nicely with almost none of that noise. Its strange how badly I have neglected my analog-to-digital audio chain since I calibrated my head, I've been running headlong in the other direction.

[symatic]

those look awesome!

[Oldskoolhousehead]

Do they skip?

[disconnectedinyak]

RE: skipping: All the same rules apply as any embossing on CD or polycarbonate you've seen on #lathetrolls: Embossing creates a shallow side-horned-groove so an over-worn needle (or wrong-size needle) might have trouble tracking for playback. A well-crafted lead-in helps people start playback because you might drop the needle in between grooves. And naturally, over-modulation, incorrect groove pitch or surface blemishes can lead to skipping. So if I am careful with the groove-pitch control and mind the signal level properly, there will be no skips on the recording.
I only left the skippy track at the end of my sample to be goofy (plus I think that last record was from the "rejected-overmod pile"). Hard-backed prints or multiple layers help keep the record flat for playback. In this respect, thin single-sided paper-backed recordings remind me of playing a "Hit-of-the-week" record from the 30s or a magazine flexi-disc from the 60s, people just seem to naturally put a coin on there or tape it to another disc if it becomes a "warpy burrito".

[Oldskoolhousehead]

RE: skipping: All the same rules apply as any embossing on CD or polycarbonate you've seen on #lathetrolls: Embossing creates a shallow side-horned-groove so an over-worn needle (or wrong-size needle) might have trouble tracking for playback. A well-crafted lead-in helps people start playback because you might drop the needle in between grooves. And naturally, over-modulation, incorrect groove pitch or surface blemishes can lead to skipping. So if I am careful with the groove-pitch control and mind the signal level properly, there will be no skips on the recording.
I only left the skippy track at the end of my sample to be goofy (plus I think that last record was from the "rejected-overmod pile"). Hard-backed prints or multiple layers help keep the record flat for playback. In this respect, thin single-sided paper-backed recordings remind me of playing a "Hit-of-the-week" record from the 30s or a magazine flexi-disc from the 60s, people just seem to naturally put a coin on there or tape it to another disc if it becomes a "warpy burrito".

Thank you.

[SONARC]

Hi there, from a neighbor lathe-cutter in Oregon!

This is a great idea indeed, and to my ears, those audio samples sound terrific! As I've been experimenting with different methods of affixing art to the backside of a disc, or even between two thinner discs, a key part of the process seems to be the adhesive. Have you run into any issues with the adhesive backing on the Kapco book covers?

< - snip - > Hard-backed prints or multiple layers help keep the record flat for playback. In this respect, thin single-sided paper-backed recordings remind me of playing a "Hit-of-the-week" record from the 30s or a magazine flexi-disc from the 60s, people just seem to naturally put a coin on there or tape it to another disc if it becomes a "warpy burrito".

[disconnectedinyak]

it is real difficult to set the art right at times, it sets best from center-out gently folded a bit on another turntable spindle to register the holes well, especially for two-sides. Ive been using some 8-inch report covers from Portland lately that are harder like Makrolon and also have a protected finish, whereas the book cover should be polished with turtle wax since it can be rough/scratchy. The cover works best against a non-adhesive and bubbles like to form if what you are affixing it to doesn't breathe like paper. I'd like to sandwich the various materials reliably but I'll admit 2-sided recording materials are more appealing in a few ways. If it weren't for the built-in adhesive i would use 3m #45. This material seems to work best when mated with heavy cardstock or cardboard. I did manage to carefully sandwich printed transparency art between two, and dollar store fake money, but with great care. I did notice that the adhesive on these doesn't like to stick to 3d printed PLA items, and it has an oily yellow residue and yellow smoke when laser-cut so using them in square form or using other means to cut is preferred (and a good hole punch). The audio quality of this embosser may get its own thread someday but for now i'll just say it was recorded at half-speed with a arduino-controlled Thorens-soundscriber hybrid in an ugly recordio case

[pentlandsound]

I had some quite good results embossing (with an adapted playback stylus) on Papermania brand acetate. Not sure of its formulation, but noisewise it was as quiet as Lexan/Makrolon/old CDs. I tried several brands of flexible acetate sheet but this was the only one that gave acceptable results.

David

[disconnectedinyak]

I'm looking forward to trying the Papermania acetate sheets soon - its also fantastic to see more diverse materials in this thread so I'll contribute another one too MyBinder 8x8 clear binding covers take an embossing but seem to behave like materials with higher levels of hardness than a cd.