The Secret Society of Lathe Trolls

This is a great resource, thank you for posting!

This is the one I have, and it seems to work pretty well: https://www.amazon.ca/McGill-Punchline-Chrome-Purple-MCG53700C/dp/B001E69SJS

It's starting in the next ten minutes or so, 2:30 PM Pacific.

Just a heads-up that this episode will be airing on the Mr Rogers Marathon Twitch channel later this afternoon. They just started episode 1240 now (10:20 AM Pacific) and it's episode 1248. I've been waiting for this for decades. :D Now to figure out how to record a Twitch channel. https://www.twitch...

As far as Rek-O-Kut goes, the M12 and M5 were non-spiraling, they didn't have the gears and the overrunning clutch for that. But the M12S and M5S did, thus the "S" in the model name. And you can see the hand crank on the right hand side of Mr. Rogers' machine. And yeah, hindsight is 20/20 with the h...

I've seen pictures where someone managed to mount a Neumann SX68 on a Presto 6N. But for the most part there just isn't the real estate in there on "suitcase" Presto or Rek-O-Kut lathes either lateral, vertical or front-to-back to fit a stereo head. Even a mono Fairchild 541A has problems with the d...

Ahh, they have screenshots. So I can answer your original question: that's a Rek-O-Kut M12S overhead with an Audax mono head, presumably part of a TR43H system.

Oh my god... I've never been able to find this episode or any evidence that it existed, since watching it. :shock: It was the first time I ever saw a lathe, and at a single-digit age watching my grandma's television I was like "I WANT TO DO THAT." If anyone can find the episode online I'd be incredi...

The 12" Rek-O-Kuts came equipped from the factory with 108 lpi outside-in leadscrews; the 16" version was 120 lpi. Other leadscrews for the 12" were 120, 144, 216, 240 and 264 lpi in either direction; for the 16" there were 105, 135, 210, 240 and 270 lpi. There may also have been a 96 lpi screw for ...

For cleaning off blanks, I know a lot of people use compressed nitrogen. The "compressed air" in a can you buy at the computer store is no good, the propellants in the can leave a thin residue behind.

Here's an update on this - http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/small-business/sb-managing/music-community-left-in-the-lurch-after-sudden-shutdown-of-record-plant/article34277095/?cmpid=rss1&click=sf_globe

I'd look closer at your playback system first, to be honest. The only stereo signal I've ever managed to accidentally cut with a mono system was rotational movements when cutting high level subsonic test tones (20 to 30 hz) with a Fairchild 541A that wasn't mounted completely level. Midrange stereo ...

If it's in storage, I wonder who owns it now?

Also EJ Emmons - I enjoyed watching the videos of your Scully lathe in action. I'd love to see more posted, especially the variable pitch working on very dynamic music.

The short answer is that it can be done but there are serious trade-offs in quality. The amount of time that will fit on one side of a record depends on how loud the bass is throughout the side, which affects how closely the grooves can be packed together. Professional lathes (Scully, Neumann, Lyrec...

http://exclaim.ca/music/article/calgarys_canada_boy_vinyl_ceases_operations There was an announcement in mid-December on their Facebook page that they were closing temporarily "due to unforseen circumstances". Shortly afterwards their FB page was deleted. Now it appears they're not going to be reope...

Pretty sure the -S suffix is for "spiralling", meaning it has the pressed brass gear on the outside end and the clockspring overrunning clutch near the inside end. The M12 and M5 (if the latter exists) without the S don't have these. Also the M12/M12S overheads only fit 13 1/4" blanks, so they're sh...

Closeup of my copy of Tombstone T-84 "Paranoia" by Pierced Arrows.

I'm not sure how much this would help, but here's an exploded view. The knob moves the cylinder with the worm gear left and right to move the idler on the far left inwards and outwards on the rotating disc coupled to the turntable shaft.

I haven't set up a Scully myself, but from the pictures I have, I think it's a totally different mount - there should be more than enough room for the suction tube to come up between the head and the mount, and I don't see it or see how that would fit on your setup.

Some folks here have reported success using stepper motors, but others (myself included) are concerned that the steps could show up as unwanted noise in the cut - 4 Hz is about the bottom end of cartridge and tonearm resonances, and bumping it up by a factor of 10 for lead-ins and banding is 40 Hz w...