The Secret Society of Lathe Trolls

Amp Doc · Joined: 21 Jun 2007 Posts: 109 Location: UK

the styli transco supply have a heating coil already mounted on them but I dont know what one your head uses. you could ask gib at westtech may be a 362 transco might fit its a short shank grampian type you would use a 6v power supply at about 450mA current for the heating coi. Or you could try heating the disc with a lamp before and while you cut. Have you got the cut angle correct as this can cause surface noise? 15 degrees for plastic or 0 degrees for masters. hope this helps Confused

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!Work or Bang Time!

OLDLEE · Joined: 12 Nov 2007 Posts: 14 Location: Ontario Canada

I've had reasonably good success with a Recordette (78 RPM) with a cutter head I rebuilt myself, and steel needles that I grind from regular 78 RPM phono needles. I am using plastic picnic plates with the rim cut off, leaving about an 8" disc for recording. One MUST use the matte under-side of the plate, not the glossy "food" side. These are soft enough for a crystal cutter yet hard enough for playback on a normal phono pickup.
The cutting needle but be VERY sharp, and you can tell if it's working by observing the swirl of "swarf" that should exit from the cutting needle and spins in toward the turntable spindle. If there is no swarf and just chips & dust, it's not cutting correctly, in my experience. Excess noise is always, I would suggest, an artifact of a less-than-sharp needle and a disc material that chips along the groove bottom rather than cutting smoothly. You can see this under magnification. Hope this helps a bit.