Vinyl records, are they waterproof?

[Machpoint005]

2 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

We used to make plant pots out of old 78's.

Put them in a pan of hot / boiling water and they went soft - you could then mould them to whatever shape you wanted - and YES - they were waterproof (except for the 'hole' in the bottom of the plant pot).

 

 

Plant pots need to have a hole in the bottom anyway! 

 

 

[Alan de Enfield]

2 minutes ago, Machpoint005 said:

 

Plant pots need to have a hole in the bottom anyway! 

 

 

 

Eggs actly

[TheBiscuits]

13 minutes ago, Machpoint005 said:

 

Plant pots need to have a hole in the bottom anyway! 

 

 

 

One in the top helps too ...

[Jon57]

4 hours ago, dmr said:

The grooves will be full of Newton Hearth silt, I wonder what it will sound like?

Northern grit possibly., 🤔🔊

[Athy]

3 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

We used to make plant pots out of old 78's.

Put them in a pan of hot / boiling water and they went soft - you could then mould them to whatever shape you wanted - and YES - they were waterproof (except for the 'hole' in the bottom of the plant pot).

 

interesting: while I have seen this done with old vinyl records, I didn't know that shellac went soft when heated.

2 hours ago, David Mack said:

And the trend some years back for attaching cheap battery driven clock motors to the back and red hands on the front.

...and they can be attractive. Trouble is, people tend to use old records which they have no hope of selling; I wonder how many households have a Gary Glitter clock.

 

There is a fellow on the waterways called "Croc" who snaps (?) up worthless old L.P.s and, using some sort oh heated cutter I suppose, sculpts them into pictures and sells them from his boat. He's very good at it too; he did us a nice little Trojan helmet sculpture a couple of years ago.

[Alan de Enfield]

5 minutes ago, Athy said:

interesting: while I have seen this done with old vinyl records, I didn't know that shellac went soft when heated.

 

I don't know what they were made of - it was 60 odd years ago - but they certainly went soft and could be moulded into shapes.

 

A quick Google suggests :

 

The old-stlye 78rpm "shellac" record was made of a molding material that we now call a thermoplastic ("melts with heat"), in which shellac was greatly extended by assorted neutral filler materials, among them the carbon black which gives the black look to most records.

[churchward]

6 hours ago, Athy said:

You' remember Luke. He's about six feet four tall by one foot wide. A most pleasant fellow.

Not all records have spent their lives sitting demurely in clean, civilised households, and the onslaught of dust, dirt, smoke, greasy finger marks, beer spillage and whatever to which many have been subjected is probably more damaging than canal water. Washing them in tepid, soapy water and wiping them round with a J-cloth usually removes much of such residue; the next stage up is applying lighter fuel to them and wiping them vigorously. For tough stains, isopropyl (sp?) alcohol can work wonders.

   I have heard of the method which you mention but have never invested in that type of equipment.

Yes, some other methods can work but the grooves are small and it is easy to press the dirt into them by just washing or brushing. Personally, I would never use lighter fuel or rub anything vigorously on a record surface and isopropyl alcohol only sparingly. I use a maximum 10% alcohol in distilled water for example.

 

To hear the difference between an uncleaned record for surface noise and a cleaned one via a vacuum or ultrasound is remarkable. As long as the record is not actually damaged the cleaned version can return to an as new, near-silent condition. Even a cleaned new record straight out of the cellophane can be improved in some instances.  The releasing agent on new records can affect the sound quality although a few plays on the turntable can work too.

 

The machines are not cheap but worth it for a decent-sized collection. Vacuum wet washers are around £300+ and ultrasound machines start at around £400 give or take but like most things, one can spend much more if one wishes. One of the most expensive machines from Degritter start from about £2500. Somewhat over the top though.

[Higgs]

I was rubbish, looking after vinyl. You may wince - under the tap, washing up liquid, and a piece of velvet material. Used to get the gravel out.

 

 

[dmr]

3 hours ago, Athy said:

interesting: while I have seen this done with old vinyl records, I didn't know that shellac went soft when heated.

...and they can be attractive. Trouble is, people tend to use old records which they have no hope of selling; I wonder how many households have a Gary Glitter clock.

 

There is a fellow on the waterways called "Croc" who snaps (?) up worthless old L.P.s and, using some sort oh heated cutter I suppose, sculpts them into pictures and sells them from his boat. He's very good at it too; he did us a nice little Trojan helmet sculpture a couple of years ago.

 

I think he does it all by hand with a fretsaw, but works quickly and can chat at the same time.

[MtB]

5 hours ago, Athy said:

interesting: while I have seen this done with old vinyl records, I didn't know that shellac went soft when heated.

 

Now there's a band whose raw energy is always utterly infectious and always gathers a crowd.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe not the best link but look at their other videos.

 

 

[Athy]

2 hours ago, MtB said:

 

Now there's a band whose raw energy is always utterly infectious and always gathers a crowd.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe not the best link but look at their other videos.

 

Hmm. I 've heard better. i  may have heard worse, but I can't remember when.

 

[Chris T]

Back to the sunk boat, there are some more  photos and a video, if you have Facebook / Instagram, it looks terrible. 

 

Seems the canal was drained in order to refloat the boat. 

 

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid02R3Xw1rbhjtZ2rEkhPG2R5yBjniZQLZtdspMSWyW9KnW87fpoS9XuRvAtLQLhfR6ul&id=100070211255408

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CrTMVXaMl4m/

Edited April 25, 2023 by Chris T
Added link to Facebook page

[Tony Brooks]

22 minutes ago, Chris T said:

Back to the sunk boat, there are some more  photos and a video, if you have Facebook / Instagram, it looks terrible. 

 

Seems the canal was drained in order to refloat the boat. 

 

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid02R3Xw1rbhjtZ2rEkhPG2R5yBjniZQLZtdspMSWyW9KnW87fpoS9XuRvAtLQLhfR6ul&id=100070211255408

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CrTMVXaMl4m/

 

In my experience, most boats that have been sunk look like those internal shots, more so the more open plan they are. However, no image of this broken stern gland that I could see. That could be very instructive and help others avoid such a horrible fate.

[alan_fincher]

1 hour ago, Tony Brooks said:

However, no image of this broken stern gland that I could see. That could be very instructive and help others avoid such a horrible fate.

 

So if the prop was severely fouled by a rug or similar, (which seems quite a likely event on the Rochdale!), then surely it would have become necessary to clear it, quite possibly involving removal of the weed hatch cover.  By that stage the catastrophic failure of the stern gland would already have occurred.  I would have expected water flowing in at sufficient speed to have quickly scuppered the boat to have made enough noise as to be apparent to those dealing with the prop foul.

 

It' a bit difficult to be confident what actually happened here, I think.

[magpie patrick]

2 hours ago, Chris T said:

Back to the sunk boat, there are some more  photos and a video, if you have Facebook / Instagram, it looks terrible. 

 

Seems the canal was drained in order to refloat the boat. 

 

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid02R3Xw1rbhjtZ2rEkhPG2R5yBjniZQLZtdspMSWyW9KnW87fpoS9XuRvAtLQLhfR6ul&id=100070211255408

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CrTMVXaMl4m/

 It sounds like the boat was refloated without intervention other than draining the canal - no mention is made of repairs. 

 

I do recall my horror once on Lutine, mooring at Great Haywood and finding a hole in the weedhatch that would have sunk her had I engaged hard reverse - the hole had not been there two or three hours earlier. Thankfully, single handing, I preferred to stop her with ropes.... 

[ditchcrawler]

4 hours ago, magpie patrick said:

 It sounds like the boat was refloated without intervention other than draining the canal - no mention is made of repairs.  

You can see the carpet or whatever 

[David Mack]

But how did a carpet sink the boat? Since it was quickly refloated and towed to Manchester I assume there weren't any large holes below the water line.

[magpie patrick]

3 minutes ago, David Mack said:

But how did a carpet sink the boat? Since it was quickly refloated and towed to Manchester I assume there weren't any large holes below the water line.

 That's what I was wondering - I wonder of it puntured the weedhatch or forced it off. Lutine could have been towed in her condition with a hole in the weedhatch, indeed she's gone through two or three locks under her own power in that condition! However a quick burts of reverse in an attempt to clear the prop would have sunk her