Recordette not working! PLEASE Help!

[roaring1920s]

Hello all!

This is my first post on this forum. I have never cut records before but I really want to. I bought a wilcox gay recordette the other day and it arrived yesterday. Anyway I cut a record on a plastic plate and it was very quiet. I used a 3.5mm to rca adapter, so i played the video from my laptop with the music on it to the recordette. The radio sounds loud and clear but the stereo is no where close as loud when I play from my laptop. Anyway I'm pretty stupid and started to mess around with it and I had the "bright" idea on sharpening the cutting needle. I suppose this was a big mistake. So in short my problems are : A: The speaker on the recordette is not playing loudly from my laptop, B: The needle on the cutting head will not vibrate anymore, and C: It was shocking me the other day. (Any metal part I touched). Today I turn it on it's not shocking me anymore, odd. I have experience with tube amps on my record players, but this "recordette/ lathe" field is completly shocking and new to me.

I really need someone's help, I want to cut records so bad, and I don't want to design and build a new record lathe. It will cost too much, I am not experienced with electronics, and I'm a bad engineer.

By the way, did I waste this $100 on ebay and should I return the recordette, or is there hope? Thanks so much, and I hope I can get an answer from someone soon!
(If you would like pictures I can post pictures)
(And the cutting head is a crystal "w56n".)

[Tim w]

Hello. Sorry to hear you are having problems getting started. It is, though, part of the fun figuring out solutions. It’s kind of exiting when you finally get a decent cut.
It’s hard to tell the exact problem without seeing it, but, to start there are a couple common problems. First, I don’t know where the shocking is coming from, but I wouldn’t trust the original power cord on most vintage electronics. Replaced it, and go through the insides to see how it’s grounded.
Second, it is rare that the crystal in these type of cartridges would still be good after all this time. Try a new or rebuilt one. There are instructions on this site to rebuild one with a piezo if you wanted to try your hand on that.
Well I hope this can give you a little start. Good luck