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How to flatten Vinyl Albums

I found the following suggestion on the web and wondered if anyone had tried it?

It suggests: cleaning the record;
placing it between two sheets of clean and perfectly
flat plate glass; heating to about 135 degs. F;
leave at this heat for 10 minutes;
remove heat and place some heavy books on top of the
glass for 24 hours.
If the warp is not removed then not enough heat
has been applied. Heat should not exceed 150 degs. F as damage may
occur.

I also heard this from a record dealer, but I have always tried to keep all albums away from heat
williewonka
czbbcl's avatar
czbbcl
1,752 posts
 
I performed a similar process on a badly warped record a few years back and it worked great. Used a hair dryer as the heat source and was very careful as to how much heat was applied and for how long.

Chuck
tarsando
578 posts
 
Best way to flatten them is to run them over with a truck. It destroys the sound quality, but the will be flat.
photon46
1,085 posts
 
Do a search of prior thread "warped lp's," it will give you a bunch of info.
rlawry
479 posts
 
There is a treatise on a company making units to flatten LP's in the October Stereophile. This may be the safest bet to flatten valuable LP's.
piedpiper
753 posts
 
...and expensive.

glass in the oven will do fine. 10 minutes may be too short though. Be sure to leave it in the oven for the 24 hours with the oven off unless you like your licorice pizza crispy.

Rega glass platters work great because they're the optimal size and the thickness gives you the optimal weight, without the books as well as distributing and holding the heat optimally.
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