← workshop
make Art piece / build log · 2010s

Vinyl Recorder

I needed a machine to cut grooves into blank vinyl. The parts were expensive or unavailable. So I built the machine — then built the tools to build the machine.

The chain

This isn't really a 3D-printing project. It's an origin story. Each step only became possible because of the one before it:

  1. A 2013 Mustek scanner with ISA interface → NEMA motors, original gears, pulling belts, linear rods, optical endstops. Parts that didn't exist anymore, from a machine nobody wanted.
  2. A candle and an aluminium plate → a heated bed, before I owned a real one.
  3. A 3D printer → suddenly possible.
  4. The printer → gears I couldn't buy.
  5. The gears → drove the recorder.
  6. The recorder → made the art.

How it came together

A 2013 Mustek flatbed scanner being taken apart on a living room floor, wooden frame, exposed internal components
Step 1: The old scannerMay 2013. A Mustek flatbed scanner with an ISA interface — a connector that was already disappearing. ISA slots didn't exist in new machines anymore. But inside: a NEMA motor, the original gears and pulling belts, linear rods, optical endstops. Salvage.
Close-up of salvaged motor and gears from the scanner, showing the original gear teeth and mechanical precision
Step 1b: Precision from scrapThe salvaged motor and its original gears, photographed on an HTC 3D phone. This is the mechanical heritage I inherited — precision that was already built into the parts, decades before I pulled them out. The gear ratios, the bearing fit, the belt tension profiles — all already optimized by Mustek's engineers. I just needed to build around them.
An early self-built 3D printer with a wooden frame, exposed wiring, RAMPS board visible on the side
Step 2: The heated bed hackA wooden frame. The NEMA motor and rods from the scanner. A RAMPS board. And here's where everything hung: before a proper 3D printer heated bed existed for me, I used a candle and an aluminium plate. The whole machine depended on that improvisation.
A lit candle underneath an aluminium plate, glowing orange in a darkened room, providing heat for the 3D printer bed
Step 2b: Before I had a heated bed, I had candlesThis is the image that stops people. A candle under an aluminium plate. No commercial product. No budget. Just — it has to work, so: fire under metal. This is where desperation becomes method. This is kitchen-table engineering.
The same candle setup photographed from below, showing the blue flame actually heating the plate from underneath
Step 2c: It actually workedFrom below: the flame actually doing the heating. No thermostat. No PID loop. Just observation, adjustment, and a lot of attention. The bed reached temperature. The plastic stuck. The printer printed.
The printer running, with an ASUS netbook displaying CAD geometry next to the wooden-framed machine in a living room setting
Step 3: It worksThe printer running. An ASUS netbook showing CAD in the foreground. The wooden frame, the salvaged motor, the improvised heated bed — all of it working together. Living room floor. Slippers. Exposed wiring. This is the aesthetic: not a clean workshop, but a place where things get made because they have to.
High-resolution close-up of the printer head in action, drawing a gear profile in molten plastic with precision
Step 4: Precision from improvisationThe printer head drawing a gear profile. The geometry came from the salvaged motor specs, the precision came from the printer, the ingenuity came from having no other option. Gears I couldn't buy. Gears I had to print.
The finished vinyl recorder: a 3D-printed drive gear mounted on the salvaged scanner motor, driving a platter holding a blank vinyl disc
Step 5: The chain completesThe finished recorder. A 3D-printed drive gear running on the motor from 2013, cutting grooves into blank vinyl. The gears drove the recorder. The recorder made the art. Every step was only possible because of the one before.

Why this matters

This is where my practice shifted. I stopped exhibiting, but I never stopped building. The studio is messy, the projects are unfinished, but the chain keeps going — most of what's in the workshop today started here.

// video archive being sorted nudge me →