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Cracked CD Repair?


gold98gtp

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I have a couple CD's that have one or two cracks that start at the center hole and reach almost to the data area of the disc - attached is an example with a longer crack than one of mine, a Mobile Fidelity Santana Abraxas.  I'm a little wary of playing cracked discs since I saw the damage done to a computer CD drive when a disk broke while it was being read.  Audio CD's spin much slower than data CD's (500 RPM vs 4000 RPM at 8X speed) so the risk of destroying a music CD (and possibly the CD drive) are likely lower than for a data disc, but would prefer not to destroy the disc.
 
Has anyone successfully repaired a cracked disc? I was thinking about trying a ‘full face’ printable label that covers the entire disc up to the center hole.
  
 
 
20170802083113704.jpg 
 
 Full-face CD label
20170802083445339.jpg 
 
Thanks.
 
Mark
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Little donut shaped stickers are available for helping the center cracks. They are heavy duty and have a very strong adhesive.
 
Thanks for the info.  Any idea where I could get these?  I only found one that looked like what you are talking about, 1.5" diameter, foil backed,  but you have to buy 100 of them at $15 shipped ( http://www.demco.com/goto?PRD12888650 ).  I can buy small quantities of the full size labels on ebay, $4 for 20 of them.  The smaller ones would probably be easier to install.
 
 
20170802095933535.jpg 
 
Mark 

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Crazy glue does a great job. Not the gel. 
 
I thought about trying glue, maybe I'll put a couple small lines of glue a couple places around the center hole on a CD-R just to see if it still plays ok.
 
Mark 

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Why not rip the original CD to wav and burn a new copy? That way you'll always have a reserve.
 
I have a Sony CD recorder that makes identical digital copies onto audio cd-r's, so I do have copies of all my discs.  Someday I might want to sell the cracked one and it would be worth a little more if I could assure the buyer it wouldn't fly apart or crack into the data area and make it unreadable.  And, I occasionally see a rare disc for sale that has this type of crack, so if I can find a reliable way to repair it I would buy it.
 
I don't do wav or mps's except for podcasts.  To my ears an mp3 copy of a high quality disc (MOFI, K2)  doesn't sound as good as the CD.
 
Mark 

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Wave files are not compressed like MP3 files and should yield excellent results! I copy my CDs into wave or HD FLAC files

Without loss of quality!

 

BarryG

 

 

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First thing you need to do is stop propagation of the crack by drilling a relief hole at the end of the crack. You can even do it with a pin, filed flat at the tip, in a variable speed drill, going as slow as you can, don't put pressure on the disc, let the drill bit do the work. Put something like Saran wrap over the data side, then put the disc on a rigid flat surface, like a plywood scrap, then drill. You don't want any flex in the disc while drilling or the crack will grow. Once you have the hole drilled, use a drop of super glue in the hole and one at the other end of the crack. Use a new razor blade to trim anything sticking up above the disc surface with radial scrapes. Be careful not to put scratches into the data area in any direction other than straight out from the center(radially). Scratches can be removed with a few quick passes of a pencil-type butane torch. This flash-melts the surface, which becomes flat again, filling in the scratches. It's a technique you want to practice on old CD's first.

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