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That record shop in Nashville had a lathe in the back room and the guy let me watch him cut
I was in Nashville last month and stopped into a little shop off Granny White Pike just to flip through used records. Behind a curtain in the back a guy had an old lathe set up and was cutting a one off acetate for a customer, chip tube and all. I stood there for like 20 minutes watching him move the head by hand and he showed me how the groove depth changes with how hot the stylus gets. Made me think my little setup in the garage is not as crazy as I thought. Anyone here ever seen a lathe cut in person before they tried it at home?
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the_derek16d ago
Guy moving the cutter head by hand sounds cool but come on, that's just him doing a live dub cut. That's a whole thing. It's not some secret craft you need to witness before you can cut at home. Lot of people never saw a lathe up close and still figured out how to run a Presto or a little Wilcox Gay in their garage. The chip tube is just the vacuum pulling the swarf away, nothing magic there. Watching a dude do it for 20 minutes doesn't teach you groove depth control, that comes from wrecking a bunch of blanks and learning the hard way.
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