What pen is used to write on vinyl records?

Hi Clara


Really hope you figure this out please let me know, I’m hoping to do the same for my November wedding, I tried to mock one up using a metallic market I already had but it bled into the vinyl, I’ve read a few times that sharpies don’t bleed into the vinyl.

In terms of where we got vinyl from, I left that too my vinyl obsessed fiancé but I think he brought a job lot on eBay for less than £5, we had a pretty lovely evening when they arrived deciding which to use for table decorations and which to keep for the collection!
Hope this helps a little and 🤞🏻 For your August wedding 🥰

View quoted message Hey, thanks for your reply! 😃


Funnily enough I did a test yesterday as well haha!
I had the same issue as you, where the marker bleeds into the grooves. I used a silver Sharpie but that didn't help.
Then I tried spraying the record with a varnish (used for oil and acrylic painting) and let that dry, and that seemed to work better! But then parts of the vinyl felt sticky (maybe I put on too much varnish). And it takes some time for the writing to dry so I'm worried people are going to smudge their messages! I'm not sure if there is a quick drying pen you could get...
So yeah, I'm still trying to figure out how to do this haha! 😂

I thought I would put an update in here as we had our wedding this weekend.

In the end I bought some matte black spray cans from Wilko and used those to spray the vinyl records. Then I created my own center bits and had those printed on sticker paper (we used small vinyl records for table numbers and big ones for the table plan) .

I did a similar thing with the guestbook records. I used a silver metallic Sharpie pen to write the names on the table plan. And we left the same pens for the guestbook. We had some gold pens as well but the silver ones seemed to work better.

Hope this helps!

Sharpie or TFIVE permanent paint marker pens are great. I used them on glass, ceramics, and vinyl and they worked quite well. The colors are so bright that they can contrast well on any background. They look better on a darker background due to their colors contrasting a bit more.

Very cleaver hack by spraying the discs first. Maybe too late for clara but for others. . People looking could try a Uni POSCA PC-3m.

PC-3m is the thickness of the tip, there is also a 1m and a 5 mI have a 3M here but not sure if it will bleed into the record groves though. I could try if anyone wants me to test.

Also looking at Claras first photo it looks like the words on the disk may be vinyl cut lettering by a sign maker. (vinyl as in sticky back plastic ) You can get them from sellers on ebay - search
Custom Personalised Name/Word Cut-Vinyl Decal Decor Sticker