How vinyl discs are made, part II: pressing music with silver

In this second part we will see how the delicate lacquer disc is transformed to be used to mass produce vinyl discs.
In the first part of this two parts video, we've seen how music is mechanically machined into a lacquer disc using a very sophisticated lathe. If you missed that part, I recommend you to pause and go to watch that first following this link: • How vinyl discs are ma...
As mentioned in the first part, the footage used to make these videos was filmed in 2014. When I met Filippo De Fassi, that still today is the general director of Phonopress International, he not only allowed me to film the factory, but he was also so kind to thoroughly explain the whole process in details. Unfortunately when we went back home we discovered the footage got damaged. The audio and video were split, and broken into thousand of small file segments. Almost impossible to recover. Nevertheless the footage remained in archive for nine years, and only recently using a piece of software that I wrote myself I've been able to reconstruct almost all the footage.
The lacquer disc by itself cannot be used for replication, and must be converted into a metallic stamper. This is achieved through a chemical and an electrochemical process, after which a negative stamper and a positive "mother" is obtained.
The stamper is then used into a complex extruding-labeller-moulding-pressing machine, resulting in a finished disc.
The last steps are testing, packaging and resting the discs so they stabilize.
Disclosure: this video was NOT sponsored by Phonopress International. I made it just because it is interesnting.
Link to the previous video: • How vinyl discs are ma...
Link to the series: • Stories

[@marcoaureliovaz]

Great video! And congratulations for recovering the recordings!

[@AccidentalScience]

Thanks. Happy new year.

[@tenlittleindians]

I didn't realize it was so hands on.

[@AccidentalScience]

Thanks. Have a happy new year.

[@simonaldridge82]

Great informative video thanks