The Secret Society of Lathe Trolls

I'm refurbishing a Scully lathe with Westrex head & electronics this week, and will be putting up photos and videos shortly. Here's a photo of the lathe with the cutting head carriage removed, exposing the rails and rear trolley support wheel, and showing the forward and reverse feed screws. As you...

Great information, WB. How do you know all this? First, both online and in numerous books I've seen when each Ampex recorder was introduced on the market. But looking at that section in the time frame mentioned, it looks more like a 300 class at left and a 200 class at right, which would have dovet...

In that section with the Scully mastering, this was the first version of the variable pitch / depth lathe that had been introduced in late 1950 (and which I'm curious as to its model number, as it prefigured the later Scully 601 by five years). At Capitol that lathe first went into service, at the e...

The Scully lathe used to cut the bulk of Motown singles (and mono LP's) at RCA's Chicago studios was in use at least since the early 1950's, and retired in 1969 - when they moved out of their Navy Pier studios at Lake Shore Drive where they'd been since 1935, and relocated to a new facility on North...

From the look of the panel, this was from the first Scully with variable pitch / depth control (introduced late 1950). My question is which model (type) number this type lathe was. Sure wasn't the earlier 501 (with gearbox), and it prefigured the later 601.

Having seen many places (including this site) pertaining to Scully lathes, I've learned that these examples would have been the model 601 that was introduced c.1955: http://www.bonedo.de/typo3temp/GB/scully_lathe_f1s_ae7e1d2fd8_4922bc0335.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_NVQujPOPx2c/TLW8crJq5dI/AAAAAAA...

I tip my hat to you.

That was a Model 601, right? I've always been preferential towards this variant of Scully - especially the lead-ins (among them 32.3125, 14.729167 and 7.625 lpi) and lead-outs which ranged from slow (such as 3.92 or 4.17 lpi) to fast (such as 2.04 or 2.14 lpi).

I see the knob that set what lpi pitch was to be used, went from 105 to 600 lpi. Must've been for 16 RPM records for the blind. It's also the usually quoted range of 70 to 400 lpi on such machines, multiplied by 1.5 times. Of the Scullys, I'd say I prefer those with this feature on it. It has lead-i...

I've noticed on some records cut on Grampian feedback cutterheads there is a certain tinniness in the sound at certain parts. Most particularly on Clarence Carter's 1968 single "Too Weak To Fight" (Atlantic 2569), especially when the horns come up. That might be part of the equation.