History

When the world scrapped its presses.

In the early-to-mid 80s the vinyl record business collapsed worldwide. Most plants scrapped their presses — machines that had pressed millions of records were melted down and turned into Toyotas and Datsuns.

The majors moved to CD and never looked back. What was left: smaller plants run by people who refused to give the format up, and scattered equipment that survived for one reason or another — in condition anywhere between junk and almost good.

No legacy plant had the luxury of new equipment. No manufacturer to call, no catalogue to order from — a mould cracked or a pin wore out and the press stayed down until someone could make the part.

The music never got scrapped. Through the nineties and two-thousands the DJs, the collectors and the surviving plants kept it breathing — and when the revival came, it came fast. Records came back. The machines to make them hadn't.

So the industry restarted on the same iron that survived the cull: presses older than the people running them. Every one needs moulds, pins, bushes and extruders — and there's still no factory making them.

That is where Zenith Tool & Die comes in. Twenty-odd years pressing records at Zenith Records taught us the press, the compound and the record. We machine what the catalogues no longer list — bringing junk-condition presses back to almost good, and almost good back to pressing.

Dates, milestones and photographs from the archive to follow