WTB: 10" pressing die

[PALOMINO]

Looking for a mould, or mold, or die, whichever it's called so that we can experiment pressing 10". We already have a 7" die and two 12" ones but we can't seem to find a 10". Anyone have one or any leads on one? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
Tom

[Aussie0zborn]

You can get them made or if you have a spare set of 12" moulds with enough meat on them you can get the machined with a 10" profile. RPA can make whatever you need.

Be sure that there is enough meat on them before you do this as a lot of metal would have to be taken off and then they would be prone to leaking from the centre hole. Once they leak from the centre they are useless.

Some plants press a 12" record with a 10" cut on it and then trim or punch the discs down to 10". If the demand for 10" pressings doesn't justify any real inverstment in 10" moulds, then this could be a good way to go. Your Finebilt trimmer is adjustable to any trim size.

By the way, I loved the pictures of your plant. So have you started pressing 12" records?

[PALOMINO]

Awesome Aussie, I never thought about pressing 12 and then trimming...experiment time! Yes, we have begun pressing some runs of 12", quite effectively actually. The only problem we have now is occasional pitting on the masters in the plating process. Soon to be resolved hopefully. Thank you for the remarks!

[mossboss]

The only problem we have now is occasional pitting on the masters in the plating process. Soon to be resolved hopefully.

Hi There
Is the pitting in the back or the face with the cut? If in the back of the plates and it is not affecting the face Just polished It off it start with about 120 grit and finish off with 400 and a bit of WD40 sprayed on
I would assume it is most likely around the inner part of the plate
If it is annoying you (Hey Hey it annoys me) Make sure that the mandrill on the bath where you fasten the acetate's on is 100% insulated from the sulfamate solution any extra current flowing there will do it Just wrap gaffer tape arround it or a woven type of insulation tape, it seems to last quite a while A higher temperature than 38 C and a pH of more than 4 will also do it Start off with a pH of 3.8, at the end of a plating run you should be up at about a pH of 4, if not your bath needs to be buffered with more Boric acid It should be at saturation level at a temprature of 38 C A small addition of SNAP from Barrets helps, it is an Acronym for Sulfamate Nickel Anti Pit Very original Don't you think Carefull as you only need about 0.5-0.75 of a ml per litre and if you over dose the tank it is hard to get it out No More than 1 ml/Litre maximum
Further even though it is a bit of a no no, by all the plating electroforming "experts" the addition of about 1-2 grams per litre of Nickel Chloride will also help with the pitting. Further it gives you a more ductile flexible plate No more than 5 Grams Maximum per litre of solution, any more and it will slow the whole process down by reducing the throwing power This is on the assumption that you step up the current in orderly steps as an increased current at any stage of the process (to get them out quicker) will also do it I also assume that the Nickel in the sulfamate solution is at the right level If I where you I would start afresh by giving the bath an activated carbon treatment with about a 1-1.5 Gram's of activated carbon per litre added between the filter papers for minimum two hours so as to get all the organic matter out of the solution (time will depend on the pump capacity of course) Than "dummy plate" for about 12 hours at the lowest voltage/current setting so as to get minor metal impurities out of the system. Once you do that get a 1 Litre sample out of the bath in a glass jar and see how much more Boric acid will take at the temperature of 38 C to saturate the solution In other words it cannot take any more You know when the stuff sits at the bottom and no stirring will turn it into the solution It takes a bit of melting so you need to keep the sample at the required temperature add about 1 gram at a time Keep an accurate count of the qty you add to the jar Add the calculated qty to your bath, let the temperature stabilise first, adjust ph with sulfamic acid if it needs it and start form there If the pH is at around 3.2-3.6 leave it alone, it will come up after the dummy plating run (The evolution of Hydrgen will do it) Try plating a plate and see the results if OK leave it alone if not than do the above and you will get good plates out It is allways a good idea to do all of the above as you know your starting points If you are already comforitble with a lab test result that boric acid and sulfamate nickel level is OK than you may adjust it as I have already indicated Besides the point of to high a current at an early stage of the process By the way Since we are few and far between now days in this game, we as purist's in the Art of making Masters Mothers and Stampers to press vinyl records do not "plate" we Electroform (It is a black art after all this will get you closer to Lucifer)
Hope this is of some help to you White horse
Cheers

[blacknwhite]

WOW, now THERE's a generous contribution to the forum... Thanks, mossboss!

- Bob

[PALOMINO]

Wow mossboss, thank you for all the info. In the past we have had occasional pitting on the backside that was fixed with sanding but recently the pits have cause holes all they way through the stampers. We changed the carbon filters and adjusted the pH somewhat with sulfamic acid (and by the way in the 5 or so years of us owning this plant we have never been able to get a pH under 4...it would really help if we could find a chemical supplier to test our solution for us!) Thanfully, the last several sets that we have electroformed have turned out nicely. We are now just waiting on a shipment of our Y-17 wetting solution and then hopefully we will be back on the right track.

[mossboss]

1. but recently the pits have cause holes all they way through the stampers.
2.we have never been able to get a pH under 4...
3.it would really help if we could find a chemical supplier to test our solution for us!)
4.electroformed

Hey Whitehorse
1.Have you changed your silvering method at all? It seems that you are getting the tin hydrolising on the acetate leaving bare spots on the face therefore bare minute little spots where there is no silver therefore no metal gets there leaving pores A very weak Hydrochloric solution spray after the tin spray and before rinse spraying should stop that happening
2.Nickel chloride will certainly bring it down It seems that the wetters as well as other additives you may be using are highly alkaline as a rule pH will increase as you are plating Avoid Nickel carbonate as it is high in copper content of up to 0.25%, about 5 ppm is the maximum allowed 0.25% is about ten times that
Ideal material that you should be using is sulphur depolarised nickel anodes, oval depolarised anodes are not real good either they are high in copper as well about 0.25%
Electro nickel is also to be avoided as anodes they will require more chloride to corrode them which will reduce throwing power in the bath besides they produce a hardening oxidation product that is not desirable
Don't let your supplier tell you otherways They biggest customers for this type of material nowdays are CD manufacturers but the process is much more gentle than pressing records as it is injection moulding where the masters are not so stressed at every cycle besides they are way smaller

3.Try McDermid They are everywhere in the world they will do an analysis for gratis tell them your situation They are very helpfull
Alternative is the following simple test's with some simple equipment:
pH of about 3.6-3.8 Paper strips adjust as required
Density 32 Be', a lab suppy house will provide you with a density metering device for that range, the other choice is a motor car battery hygrometer it is about right at the battery fully charged reading for about $4 here
Surface tension at 36/mN/m a bit of an elaborate kit is required but not out of price range Plasmatreat USA based is a mob that can help you out with an ink based test kit You can spend a fortune on some of them, no need for that
4.Glad to see you got it
As an afterthought (I may have assumed to much)
If you want to know what we are measuring it goes like this
pH=The concetration of Hydrogen in the electrolyte (log) Since we are effectivelly breaking down water to it's constituents H2O by passing a current through it we will get Hydrogen and oxygen Hydrogen will get trapped in the deposit which is something we do not want It also hinders deposition So the initial concentration needs to be known it has been established empirically that a starting point pH = 3.6-3.8 is best
Density=Dissolved nickel content in the sulfamate solution
Really a mixture of Nickel carbonate and Sulfamic acid crystals
or Nickel powder dissolved in Sulphuric acid under vigorous injection of pure oxygen By the addition of another nitrogen radical by pumping air through the solution it turns into sulfamic or sulfamate
Concentration not less than 24 oz per gallon Since it is an ion donor it will get depleted so additions need to be done. When? the plates seem to form much quicker when the metal content in the electrolyte gets low Throwing power is much improved as the metal content gets lower. However the plates will be brittle You should be able to bend a strip of say 4 inches long from the trimmed part of the master at 90 degrees with your hands, between thumb and first finger, at least 5 times before they break 6 times should be about the norm 7 and anything above 7 times you are KING electroformer
Surface Tension=It is the "stickability" like that one? Of the electrolyte a measurement of it's ability to wet the surface of the silvered acetate so metal ions would form there without forming a crystalline structure the cause of surface noise, high Hydrogen levels do not help here either An amorphous deposit is what we are looking for. Boric acid will be the component required based on temperature and content. Of course the nickel content as well as the boric acid are interdependent therefore boric acid to saturation at the set temperature. As a minimum 25 grams per litre all the way up to saturation You can alter the system's tension by slight temperature adjustments as well, a temporary measure only. One needs to be carefull with acetates at a temprature higher than 43 C at high currents It should be at 38-40 C as a rule Nevertheless You can get away with it if you start at the lowest current setting so as to get a leveling layer first Go up one step for about an hour or so to get some good nickel on them and than drop down to the minimum and let them go overnight if you are not in a hurry This way you are making plates but you are also "dummy" plating therefore getting rid of all the impurities in the baths.
This should be done every time the opportunity presents itself regardless, it keeps the baths clean lowers copper content as well as any iron or any other metals that may be in there It also saves on nickel as it is going into a plate rather then the corrugated plate normally used, that finds it's way to the scrappy's for peanuts
Boric acid also acts as a pH buffer

Phew! I am exhausted

Cheers

[Aussie0zborn]

Andd so you should be! LOL @ KING Electroformer.

Palomino, your chemical supplier should be doing a free analsyis of your plating solution on a regular basis. How did you go for five years without one? Put them to work!

[PALOMINO]

Thanks all! I guess we will have to make a phone call to our sulfamate supplier ATOTECH! All seems to be good now. As for the pores, they have disappeared since we lowered the pH with sulfamic acid. Our pH is steady around 4.5 (we test with 3-5 pH paper strips) and we would like to lower it more but pouring more 100 gram cycles of sulfamic acid seems to be overkill. Maybe we should look into the nickel chloride content. Right now we are mixing our silver with a reducer during the spraying. We have been using the same chemicals from PEACOCK for years with fairly consistent results. As for the anodes we are using Icon Nickel Electrolytique S-rounds. Oh, and if I have understood the King-Electroformer test correctly, our plates are in no way brittle. I can't get a 4 inch piece of trim to break in half even if I bend it almost 180 degrees over and over and over again!

[PALOMINO]

Also to note, we lowered our electroforming temperature from 120 F to 110 F which seemed to help. And we dummy whenever possible.