Re: [ARSCLIST] 78rpm archaeology project

["Steven C. Barr(x)" <stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Howard Friedman" <hsf318@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> Steven, you wrote,
> > > I assume the label is applied after the record emerges
> > from the press..or?
> > >
> > A "biscuit" (a more-or-less round piece of shellac compound, which would
> > be "squished" into a shellac-compound phonorecord...) was placed in the
> > "press" (which consisted of both stampers). The two labels were also
> > placed...one on top, one on the bottom...in the press. The result was
> > (almost always) a pressed phonorecord, including not only both sides
> > but also the labels therefor...!
Came from watching an old RCA film about how records were made, which
was apparently web-available...!
>
> I don't know where the above came from, but it is quite correct.  The labels
went into the press along with the biscuit, otherwise they never would have
adhered to the cooled record.  You can refer to Eldridge Johnson's original
desceription in his U.S. Patents No. 739,318, pateneted Sept. 22, 1903, and No.
778,976, patented Jan. 3, 1905.  Both refer to a "warmed material" first being
placed into the press, etc., etc., etc.
>
> As to whether later or current methods use automation to soften the material,
measure the "biscuit," and place it onto the press, I am not cognizant of later
practices.  But it would certainly take a gigantic piece of equipment, and one
for each of numerous presses used, to perform such a series of tasks.
>
Well, recent record-pressing machines work the same way...except the
"biscuit" is made of polyvinyl, and they are probably heated to a
much higher temperature (shellac starts to soften slightly above
summer ambient temperature...a fact I discovered when I left a
few 78's in a closed car on a sunny day...?!).

IIRC, the major-label operations had literal "banks" of presses,
so they could turn out hit record by many thousands...

Steven C. Barr