Newbie with a Meissner

[corneliuswrecks]

Greetings from Upstate NY!

I am indeed a lathe newbie, and have just acquired my first machine. It's a Meissner 9-1065, and as expected it is in need of TLC. The refurbishing of the wiring, caps, resistors and stuff I'm not worried about, but the cutting head is a concern. It's fitted with the Astatic X-26 crystal cutting head, and I'd LOVE to replace it with the M-41-8. Does anyone have one they'd like to part with?

Thanks in advance,

CW

[Aussie0zborn]

Welcome to ten forum CW. You've come to the right place. Why not post your wanted to buy request in the Classifieds section? You might just find someone has what you're looking for.

[emorritt]

You do know that you'll have to re-wire the unit for a magnetic head - the X-26 (crystal cutters in general) operate in the neighborhood of 180 VRMS. Apply that to a magnetic head and you'll fry it in a second. Move the cutter wires from the plate drive they'll be attached to and attach to the audio out, post transformer.

[corneliuswrecks]

I will definitely post my want in the classified section. Thanks!

As far as rewiring goes, I do plan on bypassing the amp section of the unit for something a tad more modern, hence the desire for a magnetic head wound for an 8-ohm load.

[corneliuswrecks]

The unit was part of an estate, and had been sitting in an attic for almost 40 years. Needless to say, everything soft has become hard and brittle, the crystal cutting head is dead and all of the fabric covered wiring is toast. So, my plan is to concentrate on the cutter chassis followed by some basic modifications (mag head) to get a little more freq response out of it. If I can't get into a mag head replacement, I guess I'm trying my hand at rebuilding the crystal head with either piezo element or homemade rochelle salt.