holding a stylus and reducing mass

[Dogtemple]

hi

I'm in the process of planning and designing a lathe and want to chuck an idea out just to see if it has been covered or any thoughts from those who have been there. I'm going to be doing the typical stereo diy head.

I was looking at holding a stylus in a small section of aluminium rod with a nylon grub screw, as that would be a good light weight option but then I thought about holding a stylus simply with super glue. it would remove mass from the aluminium rod by about half if the threaded part is no longer needed and super glue would weigh next to nothing, plus it is melted easily with acetone, in order to replace the stylus.

would this be a good option?

to start with my stylus would be 1.5 tungsten as I have a lot of that spare from tig welding.

just thinking that this would reduce mass significantly and may be a good way to go. any thoughts?

[jjwharris]

I'd suggest using a mono head/moving iron head if embossing, if simplifies a few things, stereo information is (from what I've seen and heard) impossible to emboss, so if you were to make a stereo head you need a lot of accuracy to ensure the two channels are lined up perfectly to give you lateral movement.

I've seen a 10khz limitation when embossing, which can be circumvented with 'half speed' cutting, but then you introduce a few issues with cutting so many lower frequencies - but some people have had great success with it!

With the 10khz limitation in mind, a moving iron cutting head generally has a resonant frequency of upwards of 5khz, I've found that less severe EQing is necessary as you only need to increase the output for the 5-10khz range.

My 2c. I started with the intention of building a DIY stereo head, but switched to building a mono head for these reasons, and now I'm finally there.

with 1.5mm tungsten you'll probably see the limitation at 6-8khz when embossing, check out eposlabs thread as he's done some incredible work with his aluminium + tungsten hybrid embossing stylus.

But go for it, there's plenty of info on these forums.

[Dogtemple]

So with these stereo set ups is it not possible to use a tungsten? My thinking is to get going and then move over to a cutting stylus. Just to save messing up expensive styli at the start.
Also I intend on building the head, building a stereo head appears to be more straightforward