The Secret Society of Lathe Trolls

I haven't ordered any of the Transco blanks since Apollo bought out Transco's operation, since the Apollo dubs seem to be of equal quality. The big problem is with the reference lites and Transco never made such a product. A lot of my customers love the Ref Lite product, but getting usable blanks is...

Dietrich, it's nice to know that I'm not the only one having issues with the quality of their products... thought for a while I was just being too picky, but looking at some of the old blanks I have in my collection that were made from the '40's through the '70's the quality is perfect - what's so h...

Cool; PM and I'll let you know where our shop is.

Welcome to the trolls! I'm in Slidell and cut both stereo and mono disks professionally so if you'd like to check things out locally, PM me. A short answer to your question is "yes" lathes can cut records for direct playback - that's what DJ's call 'dubplates'. However, mass producing by cutting ind...

Good luck. There were several processes used to make these but the most common was the Eva-Tone Soundsheet. What's left of the EvaTone Corporation went into Chapter 11 last month, and I do remember seeing posts somewhere a few years ago about the soundsheet manufacturing equipment being dismantled a...

I certainly hope that it is isolated. I'm beginning to have real issues with the quality of Apollo's products. I'm receiving many bad disks and now bad styluses. They keep jacking the prices and plummeting in quality. Too bad they're now the only game in town. The last box of reference lites I order...

I'm going by an attempt I made about three years ago to get one out per the instruction manual. Their description is to simply 'remove the securing pin and the old blade will fall out'. Uh, yeah. I didn't try pounding on the pin that holds the feed finger blade in place, but it probably would have c...

I have a Scully/Westrex system 3DII and 3C heads with advance balls. I keep it set to a minimum groove width of 2 mils which shouldn't be too deep. Also keep the suspension spring set so advance ball scoring doesn't happen. What about rake angle? I was advised to have the stylus around 15 degrees fo...

Just wondering what sort of average life everyone is getting out of different cutting stylii available (now only from Apollo unfortunately). I've never tried Adamant because someone told me they weren't ground correctly and have only used Transco styluses. However, I've been getting an average of si...

The 12 series was a very small lathe and I don't think the feedscrew was intended to be changed - it's geared on one end which would have made it a very expensive part to make interchangable. The lathes designated 'D' and 'E' were also small machines meant for educational or home use. If I remember ...

Nothing standard at all and yes, I've seen the "enlarged" hole Victor's and Columbia's for those who got burned by a jobber or door to door salesman with an overstock of Standard talking machines. Aretinos look like giant 45's with their 3 inch center hole and I have a couple Uniteds that have a 1.5...

Yes, you're probably seeing paper. They also did what perisphere said, put a metal reinforcement grommet in the center for a while. I guess to keep people from pulling the disks off the turntable spindle at an angle and breaking out the center hole. All the reinforcement did was make a bigger hole a...

Any tests yet? This thread sort of died out with no further mention of what the results are... How'd they sound? How'd they cut?

Yes I built from the original schematic you posted Flo and it works great. Just a little too much high end - I'm trying to change the resistor/cap arrangement around the first three amp chips, maybe eliminate the 50pf/10K and change the 30pf value on A-1 and possibly try using your other RIAA circui...

Also noticed an error on the site; the label diameters are all 3 inches not 4 inches... fixed it this morning That'd be some BIIIGGGGG labels...

Sorry for the shameless plug, but I sell labels on my company's website - I had them custom made for use by my company as well as anyone needing labels specifically for records; not just round paper labels that you can't ever get centered ;) When I laid out the dies I designed them on standard US pa...

Anybody do any test cuts yet? Curious about how these will respond in the high end.

No problem. Sorry I didn't get the DCR for you - been slammed. Usually heads that are designed for 8 - 16 ohm operation will have a DCR of anywhere from 1.2 ohms to maybe 4 - 6 ohms. Heads designated 250, 500, etc. will be up in the 80 or 90 ohm range, maybe a little higher or lower. Yes, old magnet...

Yes 7.5 should be about correct for that head - I haven't dug one of my extras out just yet but will today been crazy at work. If I recall the coil is sort of black-ish colored because of the enamel; it's actually very very dark maroon in those. If the rubber dampers are good then you should be OK. ...

I have an M41 (which from what you described is what I think you have) somewhere and will check the DCR tonight. 90 does seem a little high as I don't think the M41's were 500 ohm. If you're trying to get DCR on the wires inside you probably won't as they're coated with enamel. If you touch the mete...