I need to buy or rent a record lathe, please guide me in the right direction.

November 30, 2012 9:29 AM

I need to rent or purchase a reasonably priced record lathe to cut short run vinyl LPs. Advice/contact info needed.

I have an art collective project that does interviews with artists. We have an exhibition coming up at a major midwest art museum. We have a small budget, but not enough to run out and buy a Neumann record lathe.

I'm looking for an inexpensive (Under $1K if possible) purchase solution or to rent one for a few months. Even a few days would work. The problem is the equipment needs to be on site, the fabrication is a performative element of the process.

I am happy to do the Peter King/King records thing and etc into plexiglass.

I would rather not buy one of the record recorders from the 40's that etches into wax coated steel, I've messed around with those and they are fairly impossible to use in a consistent way.

Google has yielded little reliable info, can anyone help?

posted by Ponderance to media & arts (4 answers total)

Try the Secret Society of Lathe Trolls.
posted by Slap*Happy at 9:43 AM on November 30, 2012 [4 favorites]

Slap*Happy - the longer I live, the more I see that there are organized groups for *everything*. I always enjoy seeing new ones that I had never thought of. Apologies for the non-answer post.
posted by michellenoel at 10:14 AM on November 30, 2012

Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately there is no reasonably priced or simple help. Lathe's start about 5K. I'm hoping to stumble upon something I've missed
posted by Ponderance at 1:10 PM on December 1, 2012

Buy a new or used lathe in excellent condition, and then sell it when you're done with the project. It's unlikely it will have depreciate more than $1000. Floating the up-front investment may be an issue, tho.
posted by Slap*Happy at 7:37 PM on December 1, 2012