The Secret Society of Lathe Trolls

I didn't end up needing the fan in my new, arbitrary function generator, and it sure was loud, but I did run it, thereafter, without the lid on the chassis, as recommended by Bob Katz for removing the fan noise from the old Sonic HD-3 breakout box. As for my cutting amps, the crazy - loud fans (loud...

Make one for me!

I've not seen a new mossboss post here in a while.

Re: "...cool time is 115 F..."

Can you get the mould temp down to 86 degrees F before the press opens?

We'd love to hear from MossBoss on this thread. Until then, it makes sense that the same temp, but with longer dwell, could improve the filling between the turns of the spiral ridge. Checking around, it seems that your stampers might even tolerate a little more heating - up to around 290 degrees Fah...

How your experiments actually go will be your best guide, but, checking Nygaard's Physical Process of Cutting Gramophone Records, I saw that he states a typical pressing force of 1.500 Newtons per centimeter squared, which would be lower than "2.400 PSI', right? More like, 2175 PSI, according to the...

Interesting post. Appreciate the candor, too. When you mention, ' ...the lead-ins almost always have some clicks, ticks and the occasional loud pop that cannot be removed running the machines this way,' have you already played the mothers and confirmed that the surface noise in your pressings is not...

Yeah, no. It makes a loud hum, but that's not the biggest noise problem caused by this method of swarf-removal. Our fellow Lathe Troll, Tubefan, visited my setup years ago and suggested I remote the pump with a smooth-inner-walled vacuum extension hose. The ribbed-inner-wall variety, which is standa...

Ametek / Lamb 115750, with 98.7 cfm is working well with my Scully lathes for simultaneous lacquer-swarf-removal and TT-platter-suction. A General Radio 5-Ampere VariAc can be used to let it run more slowly a few revs after 'Cutter Drop'. https://www.grainger.com/product/2M262?gucid=N:N:PS:Paid:GGL:...

Agree. It's probably from playing back with worn styli. I've never seen striations at 150x, though, so, there's something to the idea of one needing to zoom way the Hell in before they're visible.

You mentioned being located in Bulgaria. My favorite LP is Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares which was cut by the late Robert Ludwig. I looked in amazement at his base depth setting of 1,5 mils groove-width for silence (only 38,1 µm across the top!), because this was a very popular pressing that had no r...

Indeed, a stick-slip mode of 'cutting' taking place at the SEM level of magnification... - but with burnishing applied by the ultra-small side facets of the stylus that might result in these long striations that certainly are following the longitudinal motion of the land that passed under the (fixèd...

It reads 3710X magnification, so, it's zoomed in more than 3X what the lab's 1kX mic can do, and 24X what most lathe mics can do. Is it not just the nature of the cut which looks smooth at 150X, but at 3kX has signs of the rip and drag process done to the formula by the stylus during cutting and tha...

That's what's different - the friction of the plastic against at least itself and perhaps diamond is something which makes static with it, too? Metals, less so, according to this report: https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/209049/4/Static%20Electrification%20of%20Plastics%20und...

It's interesting that low humidity is being blamed. I'm certainly not fibbing when I state that my room is below 20º RH, all Winter and Summer, with only Autumn and Spring showing a higher reading, but the chip-pickup is now excellent, where lacquer coating evenness permits, despite the dryness of t...

Cool channel (Junkyard Studio)! Looking forward to Part 2 of the Presto video. I have only single, slow-blow, 4-A fuses in my lathe's motors, but they're for relatively low, DC voltages (+/- 15 V). However, the 5-V(DC) logic supply is going through a 4-A, fast-blow fuse, and, in use, that one's curr...

Is it double-fused as a protection against polarity reversals / phase-to-ground? I don't have the schematic for that lathe but there's a cool YouTube from 2 yrs. ago of an 8DG in semi-refurbishment. Maybe you could help Junkyard Studio along. Or maybe he's got an answer for you. https://www.youtube....

My hygrometer is showing 20% all Winter, and I think it's because it doesn't show numbers below 20. ); I used to worry about the humidity in the room to the point of following Sean Davies' advice of leaving a bucket filled with water (and a drop of Dawn to prevent 'ponding'), which didn't make a den...

What static issues, specifically? Dropping chip? ...lots of dust that won't blow off with a bellows?

The micro-point Recording Styli brochure is attached to this reply as a .pdf.

I'd agree that each 87-mile cutting-hour of 'wear' cited in the brochure results in a gradual 'radiusing' of the cutting edge unless there's sudden breakage when it looks, in the mic, jaggèd.

I should think the edges (and tips!) I've seen in the mic, jaggèd, were mostly due to sudden breakage along random faults, whereas the term, 'wear', sounds more like gradual and possibly even smooth deformations of the original silhouettes. Though in some cases, smooth, such wear results in changes ...