Darren L
Egalitarian
I’ve never bent one myself, but I have seen several bent ones with absolutely no signs of damage (dents, scratches etc) so I can only assume an impact against a soft surface is sufficient.
PS I’m only talking minor bends here obviously, say 0.5-1mm run-out. I just have the mindset that always spots this sort of thing! There is also a balancing issue with many LP12s; if you get down to the deck’s level you can often see the arm-board ‘breathing’ once per revolution, again a really, really tiny amount, but it exists on many.
Admittedly I don't have much experience of LP12s , that's why I asked, my brother had a few second hand models and complained it took a few to build a good one, though when working as well as they could sounded okay.