David made the funniest things yesterday. He found directions on how to melt old records and by the time I came home a copy of Sheena Easton, Eurythmics and Village People had been turned into objets d’art.
He said making them is really easy. All you need is an oven and an oven-proof “form” for the record to melt onto for shape. In this case, David used our glass set of mixing bowls. First heat the oven to 200 degrees and place the glass bowl inside, upside-down, to pre-heat. Once heated, set the record on top of the warmed bowl, making sure to center it. After just a few minutes the record will start to soften and drape onto the glass bowl. At this point you can quickly reach in and adjust some of the folds, but you won’t have a lot of time before they harden into place. David achieved the best result by pre-heating two nesting glass bowls (one slightly smaller than the other). The smaller bowl was on the bottom (still upside down) and once the record started to melt, he placed the larger bowl on top of it to help even out the natural ruffle shape that occurs. Voila!
I’m not sure the exact site that David used, but these directions come with good photos. I also found directions on how to make an awesome looking vinyl record wrist cuff. Good thing we have such a large collection of records to experiment with.
This is so cool. Wish I had a functioning oven!
I want to try making a wrist cuff, too.
Wow this looks great. I’m gonna go out and buy some records just for this.
I don`t want to disturb your work or fun but you might want to check these pages regarding the possible health concerns from heating vinyl or PVC.
http://www.watoxics.org/files/vinyl.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyvinyl_chloride#_note-18
Hi, This brings back memories. In fifth grade at South Ward Elementary School in Clearwater, Florida my teacher was Mrs. Clarke. Eisenhower was the president, so it was in the early 50′s. This was our take-home-to-the-parents Christmas present project. A hotplate with almost boiling water was used, and we carefully submerged 1/4 of the record, removed it and pushed the side up on a flat surface. We repeated 4 times till we had a flat bottom and 4 upturned side. Not fancy like these, but I thought they were just wonderful.
I love this idea. I may have to try it.
Thanks!
REALLY COOL
You wouldn’t put your baby into an over and turn it into a bowl.
So why would you do it to vinyl albums? T_T
So Cool, thanks! I can’t wait to try it. Oh, and this is WAY better than letting the records go to the landfill!
“You wouldn’t put your baby into an over and turn it into a bowl.”
You don’t know me.
Definately agree with checking out Toxin saftey of melting vinyl in home oven regarding cooking your food after melting record, toxic fumes, fumes around baby’s lungs, and
melted record coming in contact with unwrapped food. Perhaps a second oven on the back porch? It does look cool. B.
We did theese in art class…butbefore we melted them, we drew on them with colored pencils(it was a project on sound waves) we had to listen to the record first, then draw what we thought the sound would look like. the only hard part about drawing on them, is that you have to draw against the”grain’ so circles and squares were hard. Then our art teacher took them home and melted them. The results were amazing, and i’m making one right now for my grandmother’s birthday.(just an add-on gift)