Thanks for the suggestions, folks, greatly appreciated. I should've mentioned that I have a variety of record clamps by clearaudio, KAB, Pickering... The way you all are about phonographs, that's how I am about audiophile gear for analog playback, that's where all my money goes (and why my phono collection is so small). I think I have something like 17 working phonographs here, but only a few that are pre-war. Anyway, with all the gear and gear tweaks I have for archiving and restoring old recordings, I didn't think to mention I was already using hold-down devices. My question was actually more regarding the chemical composition of Durium and how it would react to applied moisture. If it's more or less impervious, I wanted to dampen a towel with distilled water and place it on top of the back side of a HOTW and quickly (but carefully) go over it with a moderately warm iron, then flip it over and place it on a paper towel, on a hard, flat surface, with a stack of non-valuable 78's on top of it and give it a week to dry. Do you think that might open the cardboard back up and flatten it out, or just gnarl up the cardboard? And what will the moisture do to the Durium surface? Is it that the Durium surface expanded and the cardboard didn't? Or did the cardboard contract while the Durium retained its structure? I tend to think perhaps the latter, since the surface retains playability once it's uncurled, but that's purely speculation. I may try the above method on one of the really beat-up HOTW's and document my findings in case this question comes up in the future. If it works, it'll make a nice, easy answer. (But don't let that stop you from sharing whatever you know about Durium and water! I need all the help I can get.) best to all, r. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ron L'Herault" <lherault at bu.edu> To: "'Antique Phonograph List'" <phono-l at oldcrank.org> Sent: Monday, February 26, 2007 9:26 PM Subject: RE: [Phono-L] Hit of the Week discs I use the inner part of a wooden chair caster. This is the part that fits inside the hole in the chair leg and into which you would push the solid stem of the caster. One end is a large flat, toothed bearing surface. This sticks up in the air a bit. The other end which is springy and split can be pushed over the spindle and it stays pushed down. This only works if the spindle moves with the turn table of course. Ron L