crack in a precious 78

Dear friends,
I

If you can get it perfectly aligned, and the crack is not spread open or spalled, super glue works great. Line it up by putting it on something flat with a slot in it. One time, I used a table-saw with the saw blade removed. Another time, I used a dining room table that takes additional leaves, with the leaf-insertion gap open about an inch.

Shim the parts of the disc on opposite sides of the crack with newspaper layers if needed, until the edge line up perfectly. Make sure the crack is entirely over the slot. Then put one drop on the rim (outside the grooves) and one drop in the runout area. If the crack is visible at the spindle hole, put another drop there. Don't move the record set for a couple of hours, in case there is too much super glue.

If you line it up perfectly, the crack becomes noiseless. If you miss, the record is permanently out of line.

One caveat. The repair is as strong as the original shellac, but it is brittle. Do not use the repaired record on a record changer.

Also beware of records made during World War II. This method might not work on those. They were made with a cheap filler between two thin layers of shellac. Some have glass cores. Others have asphalt or cardboard in the cores, or a mixture of sawdust and hide glue (an early version of pressboard). And some records were made to be broken, because they contained maps (for prisoners of war to use to escape) stamped in them.

Thank you for the advice. I

Where can I get more info on the records used to conceal maps? That sounds very interesting. I never heard it before.

Record-changer wrote:If you can get it perfectly aligned, and the crack is not spread open or spalled, super glue works great. Line it up by putting it on something flat with a slot in it. One time, I used a table-saw with the saw blade removed. Another time, I used a dining room table that takes additional leaves, with the leaf-insertion gap open about an inch.

Shim the parts of the disc on opposite sides of the crack with newspaper layers if needed, until the edge line up perfectly. Make sure the crack is entirely over the slot. Then put one drop on the rim (outside the grooves) and one drop in the runout area. If the crack is visible at the spindle hole, put another drop there. Don't move the record set for a couple of hours, in case there is too much super glue.

If you line it up perfectly, the crack becomes noiseless. If you miss, the record is permanently out of line.

One caveat. The repair is as strong as the original shellac, but it is brittle. Do not use the repaired record on a record changer.

Also beware of records made during World War II. This method might not work on those. They were made with a cheap filler between two thin layers of shellac. Some have glass cores. Others have asphalt or cardboard in the cores, or a mixture of sawdust and hide glue (an early version of pressboard). And some records were made to be broken, because they contained maps (for prisoners of war to use to escape) stamped in them.

Those are rare, because they were mainly made to send to POWs in Germany or Poland during World War II. Most of them were sent to the prisoners (and many of them were seized and destroyed by German soldiers). But some of them survived to the end of the war and were brought home by soldiers who didn't escape. Others were left over and sold as surplus after the war (they still worked as records until they were broken).

When the American or British soldier with one of these records escaped, he broke the record to get the map. The map had a hole in it where the center spindle was.

This information is from a book written in the 1960s called "Secrets of the OSS: When Uncle Sam played dirty."

Silk maps were also hidden in cigarette packs, lighters, between the layers of material in shirts and hats, between pasted halves of heavy magazine covers, and inside pens.

I tried your method and glued it. It

John, you do not say what the record actually was; why not look for a possible replacement of that specific record via ebay, collectors store or thrift shop; in some cases, you may or may not have to purchase the whole set if it is sold in one, so you would actually wind up with 2 sets, but that is okay if it has a sentimental value to you. There a many collectors/nostalgia/thrift stores all over the place, so finding the replacement record you are looking for should not be all that hard, depending on what the 78 album is---All the 78 best, Angelo/Andromeda International Records androintl@earthlink.net

Thank you for the address. Your advice is highly appreciated.
Regards
John46