The 7" started it ALL...

This is how all vinyl records start. Whether the finished product is a seven-inch single or a 12-inch LP, the music has to be engraved onto a 14-inch blank disc (or "lacquer") by a cutting lathe.

As the music plays in the mastering room, the cutting needle traces a spiral groove, heading towards the centre of the acetate disc. Two separate discs are needed for the A-side and B-side.

It is also possible to use copper discs in a process known as Direct Metal Mastering. DMM was developed  the early 1980s and was the last big advance in vinyl record production before the CD took over.

The finished lacquers go to the factory, where stampers are created by a process known as electroplating. Most of the UK's seven-inch singles are manufactured at EMI's former factory at Hayes in west London, now run by the Portalspace company.

The vinyl granules are heated and turned into a "puck", which is placed between two labels and squashed flat between the two stampers in a huge machine. Pressure of more than 2,000 lb per square inch is needed to turn the puck on the left into the record on the right.

The record that first emerges from the mould is not perfectly round and needs to be cut down to size. As it moves along the production line, it is trimmed of extraneous vinyl by an automatic cutter.

In the early days of vinyl production, all records had to be put into their sleeves by hand. But nowadays, that part of the process is automated as well.

Photos and words: Robert Plummer [BBC News}