A unipivot made from scrap

[Ant]

Here it is in it's tarnished, er, glory.....

Technics sl150 mk1 sme3009 rigb vm95 ml by anthony cresswell, on Flickr

3009's are still pretty things but it shows its limitations compared to newer arms. I'd still like to get hold of a v15 with a Jico stylus on it to put in it to see if the combo is really as good as people make out

[Ant]

The Glanz headshell with the rigB bodied vm95ml in it was not doing it for me in the slightest. Forward sounding, a bit nasal, just not my cup of tea.
So, I've fixed the problem with the original SME headshell by putting a small rubber cover over the pins that the headshell leads go on. Thats fixed the shorting issue. I'm not convinced that the Glanz headshell is causing the issue, I think its more likely that I just really don't like the 95.

So, I've put a Grado prestige black in the original SME headshell and taken a lot of time to get the bloody damned thing lined up.
This combo is much more like it.
I'm not particularly a Grado fan, but in this arm it seems fine. My usual Grado caveats apply (crap stylus, high tip mass, treble is mediocre at best), but it is nice and smooth, and sounds nice. Until it annoys me.

IMG_9636 by anthony cresswell, on Flickr

we will see how long it takes to do that...

Although quite frankly I think I'm likely to sell the deck as it is rather than mess with putting the unipivot on it. I can't see that its going to sound much different on this than it does on the Lenco as it is. I've kind of lost interest in it at the moment

[Ant]

Well ive been using this arm for quite a while now, trying to trip it up in every way i can think of.

Its shown up a few drawbacks.
First the rubber on the arm lifter is not great, has gone shiny and doesnt lower it straight because the bias pulls the arm along it. So that needs sorting. Probably try a bit of leather on the top of the lifter arm instead.
Second, because of the way the cart is attached there isnt a datum for the offset angle which makes it time consuming to set up from scratch so that needs adressing.
Third, the arm cable tends to fall out if the arm post. The din socket is a cardas one and sits snug inside the pillar, but the bore to fit the socket in is not very tight on the diameter of the plug on the cable so it doesnt grip it very well. Interestingly the sme 309 i have here is the same, but its not as much of an issue because of the 90 degree elbow on the bottom of the 309 pillar.
I will probably have to make up a full loom for the next one instead of having a detachable cable, that way i dont have the issue.
Also, the outrigger for the bias arm and lifter looks nice enough and is not influencing the sound, but the attachment method for the bias guide and the arm rest look rather mickey mouse so that wants looking at

I was moaning about the finish ages ago, so have made some changes to the lathe in order to try and get some more rigidity out of it which seems to have been fairly successful, a dovetail toolpost which can take bigger tooling and a replacement second pulley and tensioner mean i now also have access to all the speeds.
I have also noted that the aluminium and brass parts tarnished in not much time, and not wanting to disturb the arm just to try to polish it up means it looks scruffy now.
So, when i get around to the next one i will get the surface finish on parts as good as the lathe will allow and then paint the metal bits other than the disc the cart bolts to and the top and bottom of the carrier/headshell bit that that bit bolts to.
Seems a bit pointless to go mad on the bare metal finish for it to look a bugger after a relatively short amount of time.

But other than those noted teething problems im still happy with how it performs.

I need to get my arse in gear and start on another one because i wont be able to when the kids finish school for summer.

at least i havent got to change any of the core parts now, but the devil is in the detail

Never did fit it to the technics deck, in fact, im not even sure where the technics is........

[Ray P]

Cx unipivot arm lift/lower by anthony cresswell, on Flickr

What are you doing with your tonearm experiments nowadays Ant?