Modest lapping experiment *PICS*
woodburnbob
>The last month I've been doing a lot of grinding and honing dull blades...and trying to extend my limited abilities. I'm now thinking coarser grits and much lighter pressure has advantages, at least for me. Mostly this is all free hand on traditional oil stones. But it's difficult to be sure about angle and pressure free-hand. All that honing led to various day dreams.
This innocent turntable is never used, nor are several select LPs from the distant Christmases past. I sprinkled 320 grit SiC dry grit into Nat's grooves and hung the blade on the post that normally holds the needle arm. The real beauty is that nearly any pressure more than the blade itself stops the turntable. Still, in a minute or two this setup turned a burr. I flipped the blade over and free-handed the bevel side. Going back and forth from bevel to face I never got rid of the coarse burr. Hmm?
So on to Anne Murray, whose grooves I smeared with Tormek polishing paste, which caused too much drag on the blade, so I squirted on a 50-50 mix of paint thinner and oil. Unctuous grit. Seemed fitting. I also decided to see what device I had to control blade angle for the bevel side: a dial test indicator fixture. I think I'll let the setup polish a couple hours or days and then take a look.
Oh, I realize this is stupid. I was just curious if it would work and what the outcome might be. Incidentally, a fair amount of dry grit spun off the record edge and seemed to fall down the crack between the platter and the top cover. Good thing it's my wifes turntable.