This is my story about how NOT to fix a warped record. Last weekend we spent some time browsing a flea market to find an ashtray to finish off our vintage magazine rack. We found one, and I wrote about it here. We also found a few 45 records. We have an old jukebox that hadn’t worked for several years, but with some TLC and a lot of grease, it’s working again. So… it seemed like a good time for a few new songs to throw in the rotation. {I can’t stop with the puns. My apologies.} One of the records I really wanted was the one you see above. Elton John singing the Beatles, featuring John Lennon? Are you kidding me? And it was one of my favorite early Beatles songs. But it was warped. Since they were only $1.25 for four records, I thought I’d take it home and hope that it would play. It didn’t. The next step was to see if I could fix it. I’ve read that you can put vinyl in the oven and warm it up just enough to flatten out minor warps. I turned my oven on to 200 degrees. I put the record into a Pyrex dish and put another Pyrex on top of it. I made sure that the imprinted words on the bottom of the Pyrex dish didn’t touch the record.
I put it in the oven for 10 minutes, then pulled it out to see how flat it was. The answer: not very. So I put it in for another 10 minutes, but this time I added some weight to the top Pyrex by using a cast iron lid.
When I pulled it out of the oven, the part of the record that used to be flat was completely warped!
That made me think I needed to have weight on the whole record, so before it had a chance to cool down, I put a paper towel over the record to protect from the Pyrex letters pressing into the record, then positioned the top Pyrex and the cast iron lid directly over the whole record.
It didn’t work. The warps got flatter, but overall it was worse than when I started, which didn’t really matter since the record wouldn’t play before OR after my little experiment. End result: 31 cents spent on a record that doesn’t work and half an hour of time chalked up to a failed unwarping attempt. The losses weren’t too great and I’m glad I gave it a try. Now I will be on the lookout for this record. I wonder if I can find it again for 31 cents?
Linking up to some of these fabulous parties:
Whipperberry
Poor and Gluten Free
That is really too bad since that would be an awesome record to listen to! But nothing ventured, nothing gained right?
Right you are, Alicia. At least I have narrowed down what WILL work. (trying to look on the bright side.) Thanks for stopping by!
Way back in college I took some lab classes. We were forever stating an hypothesis and trying to prove it. Fail. Fail. Fail. When will I “win” one? When will I get it right?
Then I realized I had been getting it right…I had proved THAT didn’t work. Aha! Success.
Exactly my situation here!
OH wow!!! This is crazy! lol Thanks for sharing it in the Crafty Showcase! xoxo susie @bowdabra
Ps- here is the newest linky! We have a new Button! http://bowdabrablog.com/2013/02/16/crafty-showcase-link-up-anything-fun-in-the-craft-project-linky/
Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? Thanks for letting me share at your party, Susie!
Lol, good to know! Thanks so much for sharing this on Waste Not Want Not Wednesday
No problem, Danielle! I figured it was okay to link up if I was trying not to be wasteful.