Set to "low" a 30 minute preheat came up to 121F. Set to "medium" a 30 minute preheat went up to 128F. And again, on "high" my unit is 136F. I would like to point out that the included thermometer isn't exactly an "instant read" type. It takes a good 20-30 seconds for the thermometer to stabilize. Something to keep in mind as you're gauging the temperature. Good luck with your Flat/Pouch. It's pretty satisfying to flatten out a wavy record.
Used this for the first time on a 2013 Rhino of Todd Rundgren's The Ever Popular Tortured Artist Effect I bought at Half Priced Books. On a warped scale of 1-5 it was perhaps a 3. It took two sessions. 2 hours on high, 1 hour cooled---moderate improvement. Then 3 hours on high, cool overnight---perfectly flat. The kicker? It's also off center. I have a reamer too! All for something that's not a sonic masterpiece but I'm having fun with the restoration.
Thanks. It sounds like yours does run pretty low, if "high" is 136. I actually talked to the company and they sent me a new heating unit, which does get consistently hotter. The thing is, you were talking about getting results after 2 or 2.5 hours, right? I've found I have to bake records for 10-12 hours (typically I've been using "medium" which gets to around 130-140 without the VF inside), and usually multiple times, to get any results. To be fair, I have been mostly trying to fix small-ish edge warps, which may be hard to fix perfectly. I bet that for very large warps, a few hours would probably make a difference with my unit.
2.5 hours has proven to be a pretty good sweet spot for a variety of records and thicknesses I've had success with, mostly minor-to-moderate edge warps. When you say 10-12 hours, do you mean all at once? Or cumulatively? I get nervous about overheat damage as I approach the 4 hour mark. I'd rather do multiple cycles of less time than risk cooking something too long.
I mean all at once, but I've always worked up to it after doing shorter sessions. I've found that anything less than 4 hours or so has absolutely no effect, so I usually start around there. I've had pretty mixed results so far--one I heated for progressively longer times until I got up to 18 hours, and still no effect--positive or negative. Others have been more successful at shorter times. The three that have come out the best, interestingly, are '70s Blue Note reissues, all of which had relatively minor edge warps which were fixed in 6-8 hours (working up from shorter initial times), all on "medium." Another '70s record (this one Columbia) was fixed with a 6 hour session on "Low" after previous, unsuccessful sessions with the old, faulty heating pad. '80s vinyl seems to be more problematic--like the 18 hour session that made no difference, or another one that I ruined after doing progressively longer sessions (working up to 12 hours) to no effect, then getting frustrated and trying it at "high" for 6 hours. It came out with the dreaded orange peel effect and whooshing noise. I had earlier done a '70s record at high for 6.5 hours, which didn't cause any orange peel but did seem to distort the grooves horizontally. Of the successful attempts described above, none have had any visible or audible damage, as far as I can tell. It should be noted that everything I've attempted so far has been vintage vinyl, and for relatively small edge warps, while people who've had the most success say it works best with larger warps on new vinyl. The upshot of this is that different records react very differently, and some seem completely impervious to fixing (in my case, '80s vinyl for whatever reason), and with my pouch, "medium" seems like the way to go. One thing I'm curious about with yours: have you used it mostly for new or vintage vinyl?
Score another win for the Flat + Pouch. I recently received a new copy of My Bloody Valentine's AAA reissue of "Loveless" and it has a bit of a bowl shape to it. As in on the A-side, when I applied my spindle clamp, I was able to press the center of the record down 5-7mm. On the B-side I didn't bother dropping my stylus onto it as the lip of the record was an honest 2-4mm off the mat w/ the clamp installed. That was yesterday. Today I put the LP through my flattening efforts. I did a cycle with the A-side facing up for 2.5 hours, let it cool to room temperature and didn't need to put it on the platter to see that it was still bowl shaped. I flipped it over and did a cycle with the B-side facing up and increased the time to 2.75 hours and it's as flat as glass now. Awesome.
On the fence about getting one of these after reading some of the failures and ruined LP's. It's annoying to not get perfectly flat LP's these days that are brand new and even some that cost over $50!!! TBH, if the warp is quite bad, I will often get a replacement in the hope of an improvement. Otherwise, I am fortunate to be able to use a record clamp on my VPI turntable which will handle the lighter edge warps that I tend to experience. However, would be good to have a tool like this so that I can address ones that keep coming back with the same level of warps. Still on the fence but I may add to my vinyl toolkit at some point...
I give the Flat/Pouch combo a hearty recommendation. I've had a lot of success with mine and find it very satisfying to flatten a wavy LP. It takes a little bit of patience but if you follow the directions (thorough preheat, check the temp, incremental time increases) the chance of ruining a record isn't very likely, in my experience.
Just as a data point, I had another failure the other day--ruined an LP after only 6 hours on medium. Depending on who you ask, this is either a long time or not long at all, but as I mentioned earlier I had put records in at medium for 18+ hours at a time before with no negative affects. The ruined one was a late-'60s CTI/A&M record, with heavy-ish vinyl. The one that was in for 18 hours was thinner '80s vinyl, but I also ruined a similar era and weight record recently (but that was on high heat), so it's hard to pin down exactly what the important variables are. I'm now testing the temperature at various settings and lengths of time (without the Vinyl Flat in the pouch) to try to figure out if my heating unit is simply inconsistent or what. For what it's worth I agree with the other posters who say it's probably hard to really damage a record if you make sure you keep the heat low and start off with short durations.
I'll never understand why someone would risk running the pouch more than a couple hours at a time. A couple to three hours at a time works for me. If the first try doesn't work it goes back in for up to three hours. Repeat as necessary until fixed. Sometimes on a stubborn one I'll leave the record in there for a week. Maybe run the pouch for a couple 2 or 3 hour cycles during that week. Never had a problem wrecking something this way. Some have suggested running a timer that powers up the pouch a couple hours a day. Curious were the preheat idea came from. Rapid cooling or heating creates warps. Preheating would be counterintuitive to what the thing is trying to accomplish. Slow warm up and slow cooling would be the right course. I don't remember if flipping was mentioned here but someone will eventually mention flipping the record. Physics says this is pointless. The pressure or force (weight) on each side of the record inside the plates varies only by the weight of the record. 140-180 grams? That's not enough to make any difference.
My Groovy Pouch also runs low. Low and Medium rarely get in the range. High does. But after ruining an expensive and rare record on High for 5-6 hours, I’m never using High again. My unit also has major swings in temperature up and down.
That is my fault. I had the wrong idea that one was supposed to do a 20 minute preheat before inserting the VinylFlat into the Pouch. I just checked the instructions shipped with my unit and those posted on VinylFlat's website and they indeed instruct the user to turn on the Pouch only after you've inserted the VinylFlat (with record to be flattened within). My mistake and my apologies for the misinformation. And there you go, even when misused desirable results have been achieved
Really? My instructions say you’re first supposed to use the thermometer to determine whether Low, Medium, or High gets you in range — without the Vinyl Flat inserted — before use.
Being a guy, I didn't look at the instructions. They could have said that and I wouldn't have known. I just found it odd was all. The mass of the plates combined with the slow/low heat of the pouch probably wouldn't matter much if the pouch was preheated. I wouldn't expect damage from preheating either.
Right, but I think they're inferring to do that only to determine which setting gets you into the target temperature range. From then on they recommend inserting the VinylFlat into a cold pouch and then setting it to that determined setting. The instructions shown above seem to be outdated though this was taken from their website just minutes ago. They have not uploaded the page I have that talks of preheating the pouch to determine which of the three temp settings is best. That initial instructed preheat to determine the most effective setting is why I too had confused myself into thinking preheat was always standard. I don't think it matters too much. I understand Kyhl's point above about the point of the temperature change being gradual for the sake of the memory, and perhaps fragility, of the vinyl. In my case, my Flat/Pouch barely gets into the ideal temp range on "high". I think I'd be looking at much longer cook times if I inserted my cold Flat into a cold Pouch. I've misconstrued the idea of preheating so much that I even leave my assembled Flat, with wavy record inside, on top of the Pouch while it preheats. I guess I may be rushing/pushing it but so far I've had lovely results. Nothing wrong with a little experimentation to find what works for each of us.
Looks like the updated instructions are where our confusion is founded. Here's a crappy picture of the "updated" instructions that I received with my unit. Note step 3 where it says to check the temperature after a 20 minute preheat, then proceeding to inserting the Flat. Not starting from cold... Whatever works!
My Groovy Pouch varies so much one day to the next that Low is in range sometimes and High other times. I need to use the thermometer each time.
I think it just relates to which heating element you may have Weird. Mine is consistent, it's just that "high" is the only setting that gets above 130F. Do you always use your Flat/Pouch on the same surface? I imagine different substrates would reflect or absorb heat differently.
Have you tried using different thermometers? I have a higher quality instant-read thermometer w/ a long probe from my beer-brewing days that I've been meaning to bring in and compare to the seemingly very cheap therm the Flat/Pouch is shipped with. Can't imagine it'd be very far off, just curious.
Until a few weeks ago, the idea of putting any kind of heat on a record for more than a couple hours sounded insane to me. But my first few tries with the VF at 1, 2, 3, 4 hours didn't have any effect so I kept increasing the time from there. What's strange is that I've now had two completely opposite experiences on the medium setting, one being ruined after 6 hours and one having absolutely no effect after 18. So either vinyl content makes a huge difference, or my pouch has unpredictable heating. I should also note that for the one that was ruined in 6, I may have tightened the nut a bit too much--I removed the VF from the pouch to let it cool down outside, and I noticed the nut seemed loose, so I screwed it tighter. I'm hoping this was in fact the culprit, otherwise I'm sort of afraid to use the VF again.
It's funny, I made sure to read the instructions before using the VF, but I interpreted the above to mean that you only need to check the temp before your first use, in order to know which setting to use. In any case, I don't think it would make a huge difference either way.
