Exactly as we run our pressing plant in Cleveland, our primary focus at our plating operation is on producing the highest quality parts possible. Our secondary focus is customer service — we strive to produce stampers for every customer we work with in the most efficient manner, regardless of whether they are a pressing plant (big or small), a record label, or an indepedent musician; and we make every attempt to maintain rapid communication response times for all inquiries.
The Electroforming Lab is split into two departments – Wet Ops and Dry Ops. Wet Ops consists of 28 plating positions, two silvering booths, and five process sinks. Dry Ops consists of three optical stamper centering machines; two stamper sanding machines; three stamper trimming machines; two hydraulic presses for stamper forming; and a plethora of soldering, cleaning, inspection, metal working, and lacquer preparatory tools and machines.
Before diving further into the information below, let’s pause for an extremely basic description of the record plating process:
1-step plating: The first metal part pulled away from the master lacquer is turned into the stamper used to press the records. No additional stampers can be made.
2-step plating: The first metal part pulled away from the master lacquer is re-plated to create a mother, and then it is turned into a stamper to press records. Additional stampers can be made from the mother.
3-step plating: The first metal part pulled away from the master lacquer is re-plated to create a mother. Then, it is replated again to form a thin layer of nickel over its silver surface (more on this below); and then it is saved as a “father” for future use. The father can make additional mothers. The mothers can make additional stampers.
In all three types of plating, the process is started by thoroughly cleaning the master lacquers. Different types of lacquers require different cleaning treatments, and lacquers cut by different mastering facilities can even require different cleaning treatments.
After cleaning, the lacquer face is coated with silver — yes, the metal silver. This silver layer has direct contact with the grooves on the face of the lacquer, and is therefore the most sensitive step in producing phonograph metal parts. The silver step is necessary to make the lacquer electrically conductive – without the silver, the lacquer would essentially burn up in the plating tank. Also, the silver is the very first metal layer to be in contact with the lacquer surface, and therefore is extremely detrimental in how the final record will translate from the original lacquer cut.
In 3-step plating, the first part pulled from the lacquer is used to create the mother, and never turned into a a stamper — it is called a “master” or a “father”. Many additional mothers can be made from the master/father. Additionally, here at Gotta Groove, we seal a mother to the master immediately after creation – therefore the mother/father faces never see the world until they are split apart. Because of this approach, Gotta Groove masters/fathers can be archived for generations without the risk of tarnishing or deterioration.
There are three primary benefits of doing 3-step plating: 1. The silver layer is nearly always left intact on the masters, therefore archiving the original lacquer cut in the truest manner physically possible on every stamper made from the 3-step processing; 2. (Under the Gotta Groove method), the master is always left sealed by a new mother, thereby infinitely increasing the lifespan of the metal master; and 3. Dozens of additional mothers can be made from the same master, thereby giving the end user flexibility to send the same record project to multiple pressing plants around the world, as well as the ability to create new mothers decades into the future for a title that conistently sells out of stock.
In 2-step plating, the silver-faced master is immediately re-plated to produce a mother. (The mother is made from the master). After the mother has been created and inspected for defects (and passed), the master then has the silver layer electrochemically removed, and the master eventually is turned into a stamper for pressing records.
In 1-step plating, the silver is stripped away from the original part before proceeding further; and the part is converted into a stamper for pressing records. Silver is a relatively unstable metal, and tarnishes very easily. A stamper which does not have the silver fully stripped will turn orange after pressing just a few records, and be terribly noisy. Similarly, an unprotected master will tarnish.
In 1-step plating, there is no going back – if someting happens to the stamper during pressing, a new lacquer cut is required in order to make an additional/replacement stamper. For this reason, it has traditionally been generally viewed as an inferior type of record plating, and very rarely used. Additionally, it can be argued that once the silver is removed from the face of the part, there is some audio information that is lost along with that removed silver. Therefore, records pressed with 1-step plating may have less “response” to a discerning listener, vs the same program material plated 3-step plating.
With 2-step plating, it is true that the first set of stampers (those that were converted from being the masters/fathers after silver stripping) are essentially the same as if they were 1-step stampers. However, since 2-step mothers were created from the masters before they were silver-stripped, any subsequent stamper generations made from those mothers will have whatever audio information was contained in the silver layer present (unlike 1-step stampers).
Ok, now that you are an expert in record plating, let’s get back to telling you about our operation…
OUR PEOPLE
Every solid manufacturing operation starts with the people who run it. Our plating team is the best in the industry. Record plating requires a lot of flexibility, because the workflow can dramatically change from one day to the next. It also requires an exhaustingly consistent degree of attention in every step. No matter how modernized and advanced our machines may be, there is no part of the process that can run on autopilot or with a lackadaisical approach. From day one, our plating team has embraced the challenges and the excitement of seeing through every project we are afforded to work on. Our team is:
Tim St.Clair — Operations Manager – Plating
Christopher Staton – Sales & Quality Control
John Landry – Dry Ops Specialist
Dan Sakowski – Production Supervisor
Ryan Mateo Hervey – Wet Ops Operator
Devon Hartless – Wet Ops Operator
(While each team member has a department title next to their name above, literally everyone works across every department on a daily basis, and every team member is cross-trained).
WET OPS
The one material that has the most impact on every aspect of record plating is water – ultra purified water. If you have contaminants in your water, nothing else that happens downstream will matter. Traditionally, record plating facilities used DI (Deionized) water. Instead, we use RO (Reverse osmosis) water, generated via our custom built softening and RO water plant. On most days, our water purity registers less than 2ppm on our TDS meter, which is far below the threshold required for purity in electroforming.
All of our wet ops equipment was newly designed and built between 2016 and 2022. The plating tank lines are isolated from one another, which minimizes the risk of any trace contaminants being transferred between tanks, as well as adds a level of redundancy to prevent down time. Each line has its own independent filtration system, heating/cooling system, and controls. So, if for one reason or another, one line needs to be taken down, it will not affect the operation of the rest of the Wet Room.
The rectifiers (the power supplies which create the DC electric current necessary for the nickel to “grow” into stampers) are all extreme heavy duty builds, minimizing ripple and maintaining extremely consistent current densities. They are programmable to run our proprietary cycle times and cycle current densities.
The part mounts (how the lacquers / mothers / fathers are mounted inside of the tanks) are modeled after the SMT plating lines that were viewed as the best lines ever built many decades ago. While many record enthusiasts are familiar with the name SMT when it comes to pressing machines, less people are aware that SMT also designed and built plating lines and silvering booths for the record industry. The key component that differentiates the SMT plating line design is the use of removable “spindles” to mount the mandrels (the mandrels in record plating are the lacquers / mothers / masters – the part off of which a new nickel part is being “grown”).
The vast majority of record plating lines around the world require the operator to bring the mandrel to the plating position, and then mount it by hand to the tank with a nut – all over the plating solution in the tank. The advantage of the SMT spindle setup is that all of the mandrel handling happens away from the tank, at a sink. So, no risk of dropping mounting nuts into the plating solution, dropping parts into the plating solution (or on the floor walking them over to the tank), and the mandrel is known to be completely secure and wrapped with a rubber edge ring before it gets anywhere near the plating line. This not only reduces contaminants in tanks and potential damage to parts, but also helps operators work more efficiently when loading and unloading parts.
We process both DMM parts and lacquers. DMM parts are fairly straightforward, and do not require the level of preparation that lacquers require. However, many record enthusiasts still view lacquers as sonically superior to DMM cuts, so the vast majority of new sides processed at the Electromastering Lab are from lacquers.
We have several proprietary lacquer preparation procedures to ensure the optimum sound quality of our stampers, and the minimum scrap possible. Of the hundreds of lacquers we process on a monthly basis, we have a less than 1% reject rate.
Gotta Groove Records is unique in that we actually have made our own lacquer discs over the years. While we do not currently make our own lacquers for live cutting, our experience in developing both nitrocellulose and non-nitrocellulose coatings, as well as actually manufacturing some limited lots of our own lacquer discs, has given us invaluable insights on how we approach processing and plating lacquers today. We view MDC lacquers as the best that we have ever had the experience of processing, and we maintain direct contact with the Japanese manufacturer of these discs.
Lacquers are stored in an isolated room until they are ready to be silvered, which has its own independent climate control. Each side is visually inspected during the initial preparation steps (these steps include scuffing the center area where the record labels will be applied during record pressing, as well as scuffing the outer edges of the lacquers). Our custom-built equipment for these necessary steps ensures the most consistent results possible.
Finally, we keep track of lot numbers for each lacquer we receive, and maintain a database of such lot numbers and where each cut lacquer is shipped from.
SILVERING
Similar to our plating lines, our silvering booth design is modeled after the SMT silvering booth from decades ago. The fully automated booth has PLC controls that maintain our stringent silver cycle time requirements exactly the same on every part. Silvering lacquers is very similar to how antique mirrors are made. In a nutshell, the part is cleaned with a strong industrial detergent. After rinsing, a chemical called a “sensitizer” is applied to the part. This does exactly what it sounds – it makes the part sensitive enough for silver to stick to it. After sensitizing and a quick rinse, the part is immediately transferred to the silvering booth.
Inside the silvering booth, a process called “Reduction” occurs. A lot of people think of this step as silver paint being applied to the part, which is certainly what it looks like. However, what is actually happening during the reduction process is, the silver metal is being pulled (reduced) mid-air out of the solution mixture; and then only 100% pure silver sticks to the areas that are sensitized. It is truly a fascinating process, and one that has been in use for well over 100 years for all sorts of mirrors, optics, and of course, records.
We mix our silver formula using 3-part chemistry produced by Ron Pettigrew (Delamo Chemicals). The Delamo silvering ingredients have been in use in the record industry since the 1980’s, and are one of the two preferred formulations used by higher-quality focused pressing plants that existed over the past 50 years. (The other formulation being the now-defunct Sierra Silver Spray solutions).
Silver is mixed fresh each morning before processing, never stored overnight. We make our own proprietary sensitizer, to minimize potential inconsistencies that can occur with off-the-shelf solutions.
Immediately after a lacquer is silvered, it is transferred into a plating tank for what is called “pre-plating”. This step involves extremely low current-density nickel plating over the silver, creating a very thin foil layer of silver. We use the same build of plating line for preplating as the other lines in Wet Ops, however, the preplate line operates at a much lower temperature and much lower DC current. Great care is taken to ensure these parameters remain consistent for every lacquer, to avoid undue stress upon the lacquers.
CHEMISTRY / MATERIALS
Another attribute that sets The Electromastering Lab apart from other plating facilities is our use of extremely high-end chemistry – Reagent/ACS grade whenever available, and never lower than Lab Grade chemistry. While this is more expensive than using the more traditional tech-grade chemicals predominantly used in plating shops of all kinds, it greatly reduces potential variables and/or contaminants that could create problems on stampers.
We use solely Inco S-Round nickel pellets, which are generally viewed as the highest grade of nickel that is obtainable for electroforming.
Finally, we opt to not use off-the-shelf brighteners, wetters, or other chemicals that are common in all types of electroforming and electroplating; opting instead to mix our own chemistry using the high-grade ingredients mentioned above.
DRY OPS
“Dry Ops” refers to everything that happens to parts after they are “grown” in Wet Ops. So, lots of metal work.
First, the parts are separated (so, mothers separated from masters; stampers separated from mothers; etc). Separation really is the literal splitting of the two parts.
From there, some parts may require soldering (stampers do not). Masters/Mothers will either be prepared to go back into tanks, or prepared to be archived in our vast Mother/Master Library on the second floor of our facility.
Mothers are transported to the Quality Control room, located within our Masters/Mothers Library on the second floor of our facility. Here, mothers are inspected for defects. Where necessary, mothers are put through a mechanical and/or chemical declicking process.
Stampers begin their journey through Dry Ops with an end destination in the shipping room. Their first step is on the sander – the backs of the stampers need to be absolutely smooth, to avoid pressing defects into the records once mounted on a pressing machine.
Next, the stamper is put into an optical centering machine. A microscope assists the operator in finding the sole perfect circle on the face of a record – the leadout’s locked groove. Once located, the stamper is centered based upon this perfect circle. When the operator is confident it is centered, the machine punches a hole directly in the dead-center of the stamper.
After the stamper is centered, the edge is either trimmed or diecut off, so that it is the exact diameter that is required for a pressing machine.
From there, the edge of the stamper is coined in a hydraulic press, so that the stamper can be properly mounted to the molds of a pressing machine. Finally, the center hole of the stamper is formed to the precise shape for the type of pressing machine it will ultimately be mounted upon. In order for us to accommodate the many different types of pressing machines in use around the world, we have nine different types of forming tools to make stampers that can fit any type of press at any pressing plant!
GROOVECOATED™ AND GROOVECOATED LITE™ STAMPERS
A GrooveCoated™ stamper is a proprietary type of stamper offered by Gotta Groove Records which has a specialized lubricious coating applied after nickel formation that reduces surface tension while increasing surface hardness. Depending upon the cut, this combination can dramatically increase the lifespan of the stamper, and reduce high frequency loss as pressing cycles continue over the course of manufacturing. In most cases, the number of records pressed off a single set of GrooveCoated stampers is double that of standard stampers!
With traditional record plating technology, over the course of the cycles of a pressing, the high frequencies tend to diminish first as the cycles go on. While this is always going to be a natural phenomenon in the course of pressing vinyl records, GrooveCoated stampers dramatically strengthen the grooves on the face of the stamper, and allows better material flow. This helps stampers stand up much stronger to the repeated stresses of each pressing cycle.
The truly amazing thing about this new record plating technology is that it does not cause the core nickel substrate of the stampers to become brittle (brittleness is an issue with traditional stampers, because they can break before finishing a run of records).
In 2024, we developed a new subset of stampers called GrooveCoated LITE™ stampers. Instead of a different type of metal being plated, these stampers are chemically treated before sending to the pressing plant. The treatment allows the stampers to resist the staining that can develop on record pressing runs that have many different color variants, and allows the stampers to be cleaned more easily vs needing scrapped to finish such multi-color runs. While these stampers have only been in use for a few months as of the date of this writing, the results are very promising.
The bottom line is, we are obsessed with quality, and we use every effort to make the best stampers produced anywhere in the world. We are constantly improving, and always conducting R&D on potential new processes to enhance the sound quality of the records pressed with our stampers.
All combined, our operation has capacity to produce stampers for approximately 50,000 records per normal workday (or approximately 10 million records per year).
Please contact us at stampers@recordplating.com for more information about how we can be your record plating partner.