Q: Is Horizontal Storage Damaging to 45s?

I have obtained 45s in plastic Disk Go containers which obviously stores them horizontal. I have noticed that some of my 45s have a slight BOW to them. Do not know if any of the bowed records came from the Disk Go cases but it made me wonder enough to ask this group of experts.

Do 45 records bow or warp if stored flat horizontal?

Does the type of vinyl material matter?

Thoughts?

Relatively short-term horizontal storage won't hurt records, but vertical is best for any record.
And kept from hot areas.

Thanks

Turn the containers on their sides.

MarkHitz wrote:I have obtained 45s in plastic Disk Go containers which obviously stores them horizontal. I have noticed that some of my 45s have a slight BOW to them. Do not know if any of the bowed records came from the Disk Go cases but it made me wonder enough to ask this group of experts.

Do 45 records bow or warp if stored flat horizontal?

Does the type of vinyl material matter?

Thoughts?

No. Storing 45s horizontally won't hurt them as long as they aren't rotated against each other(which damages the labels). Keeping them in individual sleeves is best.

No. No records will bow or warp when they are stored horizontally, as long as they are kept away from heat.

Vinyl is vinyl, so there is no type of vinyl other than vinyl. There are, however, different qualities of vinyl. There is everything from pure virgin vinyl to recycled vinyl, so as to the quality, it's a no-brainer. Vinyl comes in a variety of colors, including black, which is a manufactured color. Pure virgin vinyl is an opaque red.

Records have been made out of several different materials over the years: Shellac, clay, wax, lacquer, vinyl, etc. A new compound, polystyrene, was introduced in the late-50's and was discontinued in the 80's. Vinyl is superior in sound quality, durability and longevity, compared to polystyrene. The main advantage of polystyrene is that is was cheaper and is nearly impossible to warp. It didn't stand up to repeated play and was brittle like the shellac 78's.

i was very aware of it. It is why some 78s were quite valuable after the war. People were trying to replace their collections decimated by the rationing rules. Then the re-release of many albums on LP removed the shortage for most records.

That filler inside the records is why the knife-type, turnover, and throwoff changers started breaking records when the rationing started. Only the push-type changers (the ones with one side post that gently pushed on the record to drop it) were gentle enough to not break them.

There was another reason for the shortage. Japan held the only places where shellac could be obtained.