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Vinyl Asylum Welcome Licorice Pizza (LP) lovers! Setup guides and Vinyl FAQ. |
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Vinyl Asylum Welcome Licorice Pizza (LP) lovers! Setup guides and Vinyl FAQ. |
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In Reply to: with all respect to the late wally, simple tool making is not a unique skill posted by beach cruiser on January 30, 2025 at 20:22:39:
You're welcome - I'm glad that I was able to offer something to you that was useful!To be perfectly honest, no off-the-shelf jig/protractor is going to be perfect unless it is custom made for your turntable spindle.
I have bought and measured up lots of different jigs over the years and found them all wanting in terms of absolute accuracy. Everything is made to a tolerance and you can't get perfection unless you make it yourself. I even had a Feikert which couldn't be assembled because the trammel mounting block cutout was so undersized that the trammel wouldn't fit! The spindle holes were also so oversized you might as well not bother using it which is when I hit on the paper shim idea. Feikert sent me a replacement, but again the alignment plate had oversized spindle holes. So I took the bits that were within tolerance, and laser cut my own linear offset jig which could use the trammel and mounting block.
Here's the irony...the cheap Feikert clones you find on eBay are actually better made! I bought one and was very impressed with the quality. I prefer linear offset jigs because the uncertainty in overhang and offset is eliminated as long as the arm design is suitable - you need an arm where the pivot position is clearly defined and doesn't move. They also won't work with sliding base arms like the SME. The Feikert is good in the sense that they give a starting point for setting overhang, but you rely on the two null points to refine the answer so that design could be used with most arms.
Given my experience with laser cutting, I wouldn't trust the Wallytractor to be any better to be honest. I use the laser cutters at my work place to make my own jigs and found that the only way to get real accuracy is to undersize the holes and gradually ream them out to fit my spindle snuggly. The laser cutters (which Wally Tools use) don't always make perfect circles because the bed is not always perfectly normal to the laser, the acrylic isn't perfectly flat and the bed can be slighly warped. The most common result is a slightly elliptical hole.
I understand what you mean about the effect of tip damage to the jigs - such damage causes errors because the stylus can be forced into the spot and appear to be on target when in fact the suspension hasn't fully relaxed into correct position or is "pulled" further down as the stylus sinks in the depression as you slide the cartridge into position.Here's another tip you may find helpful - put a bit of sticky tape over the target points. As you sweep the stylus over the target, a fine tip like a Microline etches a track and repeated drops in the same spot will eventually tear a hole in the tape which again causes errors. However, you can easily replace it and the etchings remain undamaged underneath - I always put a fresh bit of tape every time I want to align a new cartridge.
In your case, you can use the tape to create a new smooth surface on your favourite protractors for you to work off so that your old tools are still fine!
Regards Anthony
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats
Edits: 01/30/25 01/30/25
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Follow Ups
- RE: with all respect to the late wally, simple tool making is not a unique skill - flood2 23:00:17 01/30/25 (1)
- RE: with all respect to the late wally, simple tool making is not a unique skill - beach cruiser 06:35:01 02/01/25 (0)
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