Steel-Stylus - noisy days

[Fatrecco]

Hello Trolls,

in the last week I spend my time in grinding cutting stylus. (not for embossing)
I use 2mm HSS steel rods and after searching I found abrasive paper with a value of 7000. One of my self grinded stylus got a loud "hiss"noise, and the second one got a general loud noise. Too loud for listening music.

So I buyed two steel-stylus from ebay (you know from who). These stylus are, like throwing money out of the window. Badder than mine. You need to put too much weight on the head even you see a chip.

I will cut PC, but I also tested PVC and PET. I grinded from morning until the night, but nothing works. When I see a chip, the noise is raising.


Here are some pictures of the stylus (embossing,ebay,selfgrinded)


Embossing:

grinded_emboss.jpg

Ebay stylus:

buyed.jpg

Self-grinded:

grindred1.jpg

I read often that some of you trolls are using steel cutting stylus. Where you getting these one ?
What are you cutting with it ?
Whats the secret of the geometry?



Fat

[rsimms3]

I don't know of anyone cutting with a steel stylus, only "embossing". There might be some folks that are cutting picnic plates with steel stylus, but most folks who are using steel needles are "embossing" poly using a backward lean on the head. Your personally ground steel blanks look great! That tip looks quite sharp, how fast does it dull cutting plastic?

[markrob]

Hi,

Back when I was playing with this, I was only able to get the HSS to cut lacquers at low noise. I started with a 1200 grit diamond flat lap to form the basic facets and finished in several steps up to 100,000 grit diamond powder to attain a mirror finish on the surfaces. Your grinding looks great, but you'll need to use finer abrasives to get good edges.

There are several sources for finer lapping compounds. Here is one:

http://www.inlandcraft.com/singleproduct.asp?position=6&department_id=5&keyword=&category=Polishing&partnum=450616

Mark

[Fatrecco]

Thanks.

@rimms3: I only tried to cut one ore two grooves. I guess a HSS Stylus won't work longer than a half hour on PC.

@Markrob: I try to use finer abrasive. Its difficult to grind the front-facet. so it looks bad. Each abrasive particle cracks some material out of the HSS stylus so the surface will be irreegular. Try to smear the metal surface to a homogen area. I think thats what surface polishing will mean. In future I try a glas-plate, steel-plate, textile or paper, without abrasive grinding particle.

try and error


Fat

[juba bc]

Hi Mark , I was watching an old aquarium pump, which has its axis in ceramic.Essa pump worked for years in salt water and sand, and has not wear the shaft. I think it would be a good material to manufacture needles for being light and very hard. You know if someone already tried to make pottery needles ?

[Stevie342000]

I cam across this in my travels on the web: see attached file. It is meant for thorn replay needles but you could modify the project to cut steel styli for cutting or for those that wish to replay steel styli.

[emidisc]

I still have a number of new (old stock) recordiopoint cutting needles by Wilcox Gay
Each card contains 2 x stylus and the price is £20(UK pounds)per card

[Fatrecco]

Does the wilcox stylus work with polycarbonate or vinyl? Works any non diamond/saphir stylus on PC ?
300$ for a cutting stylus is to much for experiments for me. I only have casual job, so the next month the money is reserved for spear-parts to repair car. How long will stand the apollo/tranco saphir-stylus in PC? 100-120$ seems not bad.


@Mark: in a document that I found in this forum, there is given the value of 0,05µm surface finish for a stylus.

[Casanova]

I still have a number of new (old stock) recordiopoint cutting needles by Wilcox Gay
Each card contains 2 x stylus and the price is £20(UK pounds)per card

Hi emidisc, are those stylus made for microgrooves? Do they have facettes? I could be interested in buying one card.

For everyone: I also bought this tool kit but I still have to build my lathe to test it out. One needle is 1mm while the other one is 1.2mm.
http://amzn.com/B000NDB972

Regards.
Andrea

[Casanova]

Here are some pictures of the "stylus" 45° cnc milling tools I bought.
This is the 1mm tool.

Casanova1.jpg

Casanova3.jpg

Casanova4.jpg

Casanova5.jpg

[Fatrecco]

...I grinded again and again... tested it in polycarbonate and was angry about the noise. Then I tested PET-G and the noise is going back for 5db if I read the statistic-analyse of cooledit96 right. I got my first real cutted record! With no vacuum, I got two hands full of an endless chip No tacking problems, loud amplitude, stereo!, quiet bass but good and clear highs. Backgroundnoise is still alive but the song is hearable. The things I miss, when I emboss.

@Andrea: In the pictures it seems, they are grinded like a drill. Only one edge will cut. They made for rotation, or I'm wrong?

Fat

[markrob]

Hi,

Have you tried to add heating to your cutting stylus. 4 or 5 turns of .005" nichrome wire close to the stylus tip driven by an adjustable AC or DC supply capable of 3-5 Volts at 1 amp should do the trick. See Todd's schematic for a simple to build setup. You would think that winding bare wire on a steel shank would result in a short. I found that it seems to work fine. I used Duco cement (a nitrocellulose based glue) to attach the wire to the shank. When you heat the wire, it smokes a bit and then turns black. I think that might provide some insulation from the shank.

Mark

[Stevie342000]

Hi,

Have you tried to add heating to your cutting stylus. 4 or 5 turns of .005" nichrome wire close to the stylus tip driven by an adjustable AC or DC supply capable of 3-5 Volts at 1 amp should do the trick. See Todd's schematic for a simple to build setup. You would think that winding bare wire on a steel shank would result in a short. I found that it seems to work fine. I used Duco cement (a nitrocellulose based glue) to attach the wire to the shank. When you heat the wire, it smokes a bit and then turns black. I think that might provide some insulation from the shank.

Mark

ceramic glues like dental types are useful try eBay for those to give you a clue what to look for but that will definitely give you the insulation, put a blob on wind the heating coil and fix it with another blob use a matchstick or toothpick to apply.

Heating the stylus will cut down your noise as will groove disk/diameter compensation, noise increases as the diameter decreases so you aim to adjust the heating as the diameter decreases but not by much, there should be a sweet spot, not too much heat think warm knife cutting butter.

[Fatrecco]

I know about heating wire, but I think heat will decrease the lifetime of these "cheap ebay HSS", but I try it tomorrow. I've enough konstantan-wire here around. Heaten up the PET-G with a heatlamp ended in a warping plate. My grinding machine got 60U/min an so the hole process lasts more than one day, but I got a good feeling.

[Casanova]

@Andrea: In the pictures it seems, they are grinded like a drill. Only one edge will cut. They made for rotation, or I'm wrong?

Fat

Yes, they are made to rotate, but I'm not sure if there is one edge sharper than the other one because of this, or if it's due to the manufacturing.
Anyway I'll give it a try.

[Bahndahn]

I know about heating wire, but I think heat will decrease the lifetime of these "cheap ebay HSS", but I try it tomorrow. I've enough konstantan-wire here around. Heaten up the PET-G with a heatlamp ended in a warping plate. My grinding machine got 60U/min an so the hole process lasts more than one day, but I got a good feeling.

I don't think this will be a problem at the temperatures used when heating a stylus. HSS is specifically made to handle high heat, when it comes to steel. This is why it's called High Speed Steel– it is able to handle more heat, therefore cut faster [when used as a machinists cutting tool, particularly when cutting metal]. This was a very welcomed industrial development in its day, and now it's a standard.