Re: [ARSCLIST] Question re DuoDisc records

[David Lewis <davlew@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Yes - I am familiar with DuoDiscs. These are cheaply made, instantaneous-cut
discs. The first "homemades" I ever owned were a pair of these given to me
by a family friend thirty years ago. What the correspondent calls "vinyl" is
actually the lacquer coating on the outside of the aluminum center, and if
it is already peeling there is little hope for it.

This is a pity - Duodiscs have fairly quiet surfaces for homemades, but it
appears most of the ones I see nowadays are on their way out - it appears 90
per cent of them are flaking off. And these always seemed so durable, unlike
steel-base Carr-O-Tones and others which rust and usually prove unplayable
anyway. As there are no established standards for handling these records, it
is hard to know what to do to preserve them. The standards may well arrive
too late for most DuoDiscs.

My advice - record the non-flaked-off portions at a very slow speed 2 or 3
times, speed up the results and edit what's left together. You may get
different grooves to play on different passes. 

David N. Lewis
Assistant Classical Editor, All Music Guide

"Contemporary composers, and at least a considerable number of them, explain
what system they used, in what way they arrived at something. I do not do
that. I think that the matter of the way by which one arrived at something
is, for the listeners, unimportant. What matters is the final result, that
is the work itself." -Grazyna Bacewicz, 1964

-----Original Message-----
From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
[mailto:ARSCLIST@xxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Joel Ackerman
Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2006 11:47 PM
To: ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [ARSCLIST] Question re DuoDisc records

Am asked the following question:

Are you familiar with those "DuoDisc" type records?  They have an aluminum
center (substrate) and a thin coat of vinyl (I think) on top of the
aluminum.  I believe they are records people made home recordings on.
Anyway I have two (or three) of them and the vinyl is peeling off the
aluminum.  I was wondering if you knew anything about, perhaps, repairing
the peel?

Looking at photos, it appears that the vinyl is coming apart - cracking and
heading towards eventual peeling off,.

Suggestions welcome.

Joel Ackerman