The Steel Guitar Forum

I had no idea where to post this but here it is-- I have an old Gene Watson 33 rpm record (yes im 17 and I know what a record is hehehehe) but we moved 2 years ago and I guess we had boxes or something on it,, but it is BADLY warped and I love the record, but does anyone know how to "unwarp" a vinyl record?

Then, take 2 panes of glass and sanwich the record between the two and leave in the sun untils it's flat.
There are more exotic ways to do this similarly, but this is the basics.

If it's not a bad warp, might be best to just leave it alone and digitize it. But if it's really bad, you probably don't have much to lose to try.

I've (more or less) unwarped a few over the years. Heat and/or pressure probably caused the warp, and I have found getting the record warm (don't overdo it) and applying pressure sometimes works. I sandwiched the record between two thick panes of glass, put a bunch of books on that, and applied a heat lamp lightly for a while. Real scientific, I know, but sometimes it worked.

There is a danger of destroying the record this way - you don't want to mess up the grooves. Definitely don't apply a lot of heat. There's lots of info on the web on this - try googling unwarping vinyl records.

Hey, here's a device to unwarp records (Japanese, of course) - http://uk.gizmodo.com/2007/10/23/unwarp ... the_d.html and here - http://www.furutech.com/a2008/product2.asp?prodNo=263

Only £990.00, or about $1846 in USD.

Thanks guys,, I will try it this way and hope for the best.

my parents used to put em in the oven. I dont think that worked out to well for em, no pressure just heat...I remember playing their beatles records and the needle was like a rollercoaster on the warped vinly, actually getting some 'air' jumping off the grooves Thankfully, their stones records remained unwarped and so I ended up with good taste in music instead of being a beatles fan

Austin,
Along with all the suggestions with the window glass, When you go to digitize or copy the record in whatever way,I've found to increase the pressue to the player head by about double or as much as it can stand without audible surface noise, you can get the music duplicated OK. This will keep the head from bouncing as it plays and give you a pretty good duplication.