A vinyl record factory in planning for the Chiang Mai area of northern Thailand (site candidates include Lamphun and Lampang provinces). This repository is the source of truth for the project: planning documents and cost data today. As the factory takes shape it will also hold the data and software used to run it.

Team

Simona Meesaiyati, Project Lead
Alexander Grabowski, Technical Consultant

buildfor.life supports the project in a consulting capacity.

Vision: Full-Service Production

The goal is the complete vinyl production chain under one roof, from audio file to delivered record:

Mastering: audio mastering for vinyl
Lathe cutting: cutting the master disc
Silvering: metallizing the cut master
Stamper production: electroforming nickel stampers in-house
Pressing: extrusion and pressing of the finished records
Finishing: trimming, labels, shrink wrapping
Packaging: folded paper cartons (jackets and sleeves), produced in collaboration with local packaging manufacturers
Fulfillment: dropshipping directly to end customers on behalf of labels and artists, alongside conventional bulk delivery

In-house galvanics (steps 3 and 4) removes the dependency on overseas stamper suppliers, a common bottleneck for pressing plants, and shortens turnaround for clients. Partnering with local carton manufacturers keeps packaging sourcing close to the plant, in line with the local-sourcing preference for materials. The current planning documents cover the pressing line (steps 5 and 6) in detail; equipment, partners, and budgets for the other steps are open planning items.

Project Status

Planning stage (as of mid-2026).

Industry outreach has been ongoing for several years: equipment vendors, material suppliers, and independent consultants.
Alexander and Simona will soon travel to Making Vinyl in Haarlem, Netherlands, to gather further insights from the pressing industry.
A collaboration with Resurrec is under discussion.

Pressing Line: Equipment Plan

The target press fleet is a 50/50 split between fully automated and semi-automatic presses: automated presses for standard production volume, and semi-automatic presses for splatter and other color effects, special editions, and small runs, where an operator working the mold directly is an advantage rather than a cost. The semi-automatic side is covered by the Newbilt evaluation below; a fully automated press line is an open procurement item.

The core semi-automatic machinery under evaluation comes from Newbilt machinery GmbH (Alsdorf, Germany):

Newbilt Single 2.1 system: one VEX 50 extruder feeding one HRP 12 hydraulic press (~150 t press force), pressing 12" records at 140 or 180 g with a Newbilt book mold set. A Vario trimmer handles 12" cuttings, with a 7"/10" upgrade path.
Duplex upgrade path: the hydraulic aggregate is already sized for a second press, and an additional press and extruder are quoted options, so the plant can scale from Single to Duplex without replacing infrastructure.
Supporting equipment: label dry oven, shrink wrapper, PVC grinder (scrap feeds back as the ~20% recycled share of the feedstock), 7" center label punch, buffer spindles and separator plates.

The June 2024 Newbilt quotation totals ≈ €200,500 including freight from Alsdorf to Thailand and seaworthy packaging. Two major utility systems are deliberately excluded and will be sourced and installed locally in Thailand: a ~400 kg/h steam generator (with water treatment) and a ~250 kW cooling water system. The quotation has passed its validity date and will need re-confirmation before ordering.

Site planning for the semi-automatic line works from Newbilt's Duplex requirements: roughly 200 m² of production floor, 32 kVA connected electrical load, saturated steam at 10 bar, and compressed air and cooling water circuits, plus side rooms for materials, compressor, chiller, and finished goods.

Sustainability

Two commitments are fixed design requirements for this plant, not aspirations to be traded away during engineering: run on as much renewable energy as possible, and discharge no contaminated water. Both are decisions we can actually make, because the two biggest utility systems (steam and cooling) are explicitly excluded from the Newbilt scope and will be sourced and installed locally in Thailand. That gives us a free hand to spec them green from day one.

Renewable energy: large solar installation

The pressing machinery itself is a modest electrical load: 32 kVA connected, ~21 kW average for a full Duplex line. The real energy demand sits in the utilities around it, above all the steam generator (400 kg/h saturated steam at 10 bar / 180 °C) and the 250 kW cooling system.

A large rooftop/ground PV installation is planned. Northern Thailand's solar irradiance is favorable, and daytime-heavy production shifts align well with PV output.
The machine load and cooling system are straightforward PV targets.
Steam is the open engineering question. Options under evaluation include an electric boiler (maximizes the solar share), a biomass boiler (locally abundant fuel), and solar-thermal pre-heating of boiler feedwater. No technology choice has been made yet; it will be driven by honest numbers on load profiles, storage, and grid backup, not by what sounds greenest.
System sizing (kWp, storage, grid-connection model) is open until the site is chosen.

Zero contaminated water

The reference process schematic shows a conventional open "dirty water" cooling loop. We will not build it that way.

Cooling (up to 250 kW, 220 l/min peak, roughly 98% of it mold cooling) will run as a closed loop with a cooling tower/chiller, so process water is recirculated rather than discharged.
Steam condensate will be recovered and returned to the treated feedwater cycle instead of being dumped.
The planned in-house galvanics line (silvering and stamper electroforming) involves plating chemistry: silver solutions and nickel baths. This is the hardest part of the zero-discharge commitment. Rinse water will need closed-loop treatment and metal recovery, designed in from the start rather than retrofitted.
Solvent handling (flagged in the site requirements) will be contained and disposed of as controlled waste, never via wastewater.
Target: no process-water discharge to the local environment. Detailed water balance and treatment design are pending site selection.

Materials

The plant design already includes a PVC recycling loop: an in-house grinder returns trimmings and rejects to the extruder, with the standard feed mix at 80% virgin / 20% recycled compound. Record scrap becomes feedstock, not landfill.

For the virgin compound itself, the preference is local (Thai/regional) PVC sourcing if the quality meets vinyl-record specifications. The current supplier list (2021) is almost entirely European, with one US option; qualifying a local compound would cut shipping distance, cost, and the carbon footprint of the feedstock. European suppliers remain the fallback where quality demands it.

Worker Safety

Worker safety is a founding priority, on equal footing with the environmental commitments:

Safety training: proper, structured training for all operators and maintenance staff, starting with the vendor-led commissioning training and extending into an ongoing in-house program. The pressing line combines hydraulics (~180 bar), saturated steam (10 bar / 180 °C), and hot PVC, and every one of these demands trained, deliberate handling.
Clean rooms for galvanics: silvering and stamper electroforming will run in dedicated clean rooms with controlled access, proper ventilation and exhaust, and decontamination procedures for people and equipment leaving the area. Plating chemistry stays inside its containment.
Personal protective equipment: appropriate PPE (overalls, gloves, goggles, and process-specific protection) is mandatory per work area, in line with the equipment vendor's site requirements (exhaust work benches, fire protection) and local regulations.

Safety infrastructure (training program, clean-room specification, decontamination workflow) will be planned alongside the equipment, not after it.

Repository Layout

docs/
├── consulting/   Consultancy proposals and overviews
├── equipment/
│   └── newbilt/  Offers, site requirements, process schematic, service rates
├── finance/      Project cost overviews
└── suppliers/    PVC compound supplier contacts

Documents are primary sources (vendor PDFs and spreadsheets) and reflect the state of negotiations at their file dates. Treat prices and lead times as snapshots, not commitments.

Roadmap for This Repo

Accumulate planning and vendor documents as decisions firm up, including the mastering, cutting, and galvanics chain
Add structured data (inventory, orders, production batches) once operations begin
Host the software/tooling built to run the factory (tracking, ERP-style workflows)