Someone handcrafted it, it apparently plays.
"Hand crafted"
Literally still on a lasercutter
this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2026
327 points (98.5% liked)
Mildly Interesting
25500 readers
771 users here now
This is for strictly mildly interesting material. If it's too interesting, it doesn't belong. If it's not interesting, it doesn't belong.
This is obviously an objective criteria, so the mods are always right. Or maybe mildly right? Ahh.. what do we know?
Just post some stuff and don't spam.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
I can't believe it plays until i hear it play
I can belive it because i know the tech is very simple. What could be a concern are durability and quality. That its a softer material could also affect the sound in a quirky way
Not sure wood is a softer material than vinyl (depending on species).
My concern would be the difficulty of engraving without the grain interfering with the groove.
On the scale of a record needle, wood is quite soft. Woods strength comes from its structure working together to resist stressors. So a beam of wood would be stronger than a beam of vinyl, but when being scraped along a grooved surface that strength doesn't help.
Yeah, if you've ever tried to polish up wood (without any sort of coating), you know it's almost impossible to make it completely smooth, it always has a certain texture to the touch. And here, where you have to pretty much cut it once and can't polish it at all, it's probably going to retain a lot of that texture in the groove. So I guess it is possible that it might """play""", but it would probably be mostly noise with some music coming through at times.
Might work a little better (for a little while) since it's 'cut' via a laser, not friction or gouging - the surface would be relatively smooth in comparison since it's burning the material.
If I were going to do something like this, I would probably make the wood as flat as possible and then put a high-quality coat of epoxy or some other harder material on top of it and carve the music into that material instead of the wood.
I'm not convinced. The edges of laser-cut plywood are not smooth, they still have a rough grainy texture to them, and they're also covered in soot which is probably not conducive to music playback.
I'm really interested in hearing what this sounds like, but I don't expect much.
From the picture it looks like it might be laser-cut? The grain might still be an issue though idk
Judging by the grate it's sitting on it's still sitting in the bed of the laser cutter.
laughs in humidity
I can't believe it's not butter!
Here's a 10 year old video of a tortilla being played.
Laser engraving tech has become really accessible in the past five years or so.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=X1N9oMS3lRM&pp=ygUNd29vZGVuIHJlY29yZA%3D%3D
Here's a different wood record.
Im sure it does. Slightest bit of high humidity and it'll never sound the same again though
Wood naturally absorbs and releases humidity, especially seasonally. This would sound different in summer compared to winter.
Then you gotta play it backwards…
It will play the ending of Earth Song where trees grow back
Same issue with cassette tapes left in a car parked in the sun.
Nice and woody sound.
It’ll play fine a couple times maybe. Will start to sound muffled pretty fast as it wears out.
Idk I’m not hearing anything
Make sure not to play any tracks that could be considered 'fire'.
How are the grooves made? 🤔 Like, is the wood a solid piece or does it start out as a sort of pulpy slurry?
Burned like a CD-RW
I want to say if it was cast into a slurry entirely it wouldn't have the dark spots in the grooves. I think it's more likely it was cast as a blank record shape first, and then used a laser based on a 3d model of the record. Just a guess though.
To me it looks like standard plywood
Actual tone-wood!
Feel like this could cause havoc with your cartridge
Gonna make you burn, gonna make you sting.
Pfft can it play doom?