The Secret Society of Lathe Trolls

Very commendable job, RonnieD, congratulations... and thanks for the PM with the link to this thread. Your music samples are stellar, and I'm encouraged by your good results cutting into plastic. You don't mention suction, and with a hot stylus I can't imagine that you don't use vacuum. Any troubles...

Estrada: you say, "...forming 3-5 micron burnishing facets is a challenge though." Back in the 1970s, when I was buying sapphire microgroove styli from Capps, they didn't list any actual dimensions, but noted that the styli were "barely burnished." Any idea what this means? Also, the Capps patent (#...

I, for one, certainly look forward to it as well. Not to grind my own, but with expectation that someone here will become professionally proficient and offer styli for sale at affordable prices. Somewhere in the past I recall reading a short article on why diamonds are not the ideal material for lac...

Thelatheofus: Are you cutting or embossing? I've never experienced level-dependent distortion with homebrew cutterheads, but almost all my experience has been cutting lacquers. My own attempts to emboss have met with only marginal audio-quality results, and I have noticed that at high levels there s...

Guys, here's the transducer I used in the first version of my stereo cutterhead. Diameter is about an inch, and talk about stiffness, it's very stiff. What's more, it has a good deal of metal in the magnet structure, which might help dissipate heat better than the shallow transducers. No need for li...

Many thanks, Thelatheofus, for those observations... good information. Please keep us all apprised of any successes and breakthroughs in your continuing attention to our mutual endeavor.

Good sleuthing and application, Estrada! Removing or at least lowering those resonance peaks and valleys through mechanical means is definitely necessary in a non-feedback cutterhead. Your second spectrum plot certainly looks so much better. I hope you are making some test cuts so we can hear the pr...

The Soberton looks to be just about the same size, the PUI is a bit smaller. What's the situation here, does the exciter need to fit a specific 3D-printed frame or something? Any of those exciters ought to work. I do tend toward the Dayton Audio one as it's been in production for quite a while and i...

Hey, GreatSoul, the Tectonic appears to be very similar to the Dayton DAEX19CT-4. I've attached the datasheet for both. Compare these and, if you think the Daytons might be made to work, I have a spare pair of them here I could let go real cheap, although the Daytons are pretty inexpensive to begin ...

Fattcamp : As far as a turntable mat goes, I've always used either 1/16-inch sheet cork, which is a bit fragile, or the 'rubberized' equivalent, also 1/16 thick, generally intended for DIY gaskets for automotive purposes. The rubberized stuff, often associated with the brand name 'Permatex,' is tou...

The dashpot on a recording lathe has historically been hydraulic, based on the viscosity of oil, rather than a pneumatic 'airpot.' The action of the two is really quite different. Airpots are fine for screen doors and mechanical assemblies that require a slow action for large perturbations, but they...

Guys, I found a couple of sources for O-ring type pulleys, one US source is McMaster-Carr: https://www.mcmaster.com/products/pulleys/chain-and-belt-pulleys~/round-belt-pulleys-6/ ...and another is ServoCity.com: https://www.servocity.com/o-ring-belts-pulleys/ The second also features belts of variou...

David, that answers it all. The lathe I'm currently building sports a toothed timing belt to drive the lead screw, but I'll have to evaluate and maybe rethink this. My initial inclination was to use a round belt, and that may well prove the better option after all. Thanks for the quick answers! -Jim

Good work, David. A couple of questions, if I may... 1. Is the counterweight the only means of adjusting depth of cut? Are youe cutting, or embossing only? (Just wondering about the total mass of the head and counterweight and how it affects the resonance period of the suspension; that is, ability t...

Truth in what you say, zdenek; many of the type that Fluxter pictured are actually tuned in their resonance to provide high output at specific audio frequencies... for alarm panels, etc. But piezo transducers can be made pretty flat. the Astatic Corp made lots of decent-sounding piezo microphone ele...

I've wondered about that too, Fluxter, but figured that the frequency and phase differences between the coil-driving voltage and the output of the piezo element would be so great as to preclude a meaningful difference signal for correction. If I were to 'graduate' to a feedback cutter, I might consi...

Gosh, Dave; that's remarkable progress in such a relatively short time, and dealing with such 'adversities' as a family ;-) Once the electronics are nailed down (and wiring appropriately dressed so you don't trip and fall), be sure to share a sample of the results. Some of the embossing audio sample...

Hey, imisanthropeofficial, looks like US suppliers no longer carry that exciter. I'd opt for a very similar one from Dayton Audio: https://www.daytonaudio.com/product/1174/daex19ct-4-coin-type-19mm-exciter-5w-4-ohm It looks to be the same 19mm size, just the fine points of mounting might require a r...

Being a minimalist, I question the need to resort to an Arduino to cut a record. But then I've been doing it for just over 70 years, yet still not so feeble as to have trouble with a totally-manual operation. Yes, a single R/C low-pass (real or virtual) will debounce those guys nicely; it's not like...

I'm with you on that, evildrome; thanks for suggesting a simple solution. I'm building a new lathe right now and opted for "Microswitches," you know, those little plastic blocks with a metal lever sticking out off the side. Here's a snapshot of how I'm implementing these on my project as limit switc...