Tuesday, May 18, 2010

fixing small spindle holes

Summer is upon us at Madison so expect a lot of postponed blog ideas from asly in the coming weeks.



If you are one of the increasing number of people buying new vinyl (way to be!) chances are good that you have encountered a record with too small of a spindle hole. I'm not sure what the deal is here. I asked my father if he had this problem 'in his day' and he said he didn't. They don't make 'em like they used to, eh?

There's probably some product out there to fix this problem. I don't know what it is and I can't imagine it would be cost effective when there are a few good home-made remedies. One article I found suggested using a scissors to scrape a bigger hole. This seems a bit intense to me.

My favored method for enlarging spindle holes is to use sandpaper.

1. Acquire sandpaper.

2. Roll up into a spindle-sized tube. Hold in place with a rubber band.

3. Insert into spindle hole and spin record. Don't spin it more than a few times before checking how it fits into the spindle--you don't want it to get too big. Usually one or two spins is all it takes.




All better! Now it looks good AND plays without being forced onto your turntable.

Okay now, remember to be careful. Take off the least amount of hole-clogging vinyl possible and you should be golden. Let me know how this works for you/what you do when you get a record that doesn't easily fall into place on your player.

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