20-06-2011, 11:12 AM
Hi all,
For ages I had wanted a turntable clamp. These are essentially heavy cylinders that sit over the centre of a record and mount on the turntable spindle. They are useful for slightly warped records that may not play well, they flatten out the record whilst it is being spun. As a vinyl lover this was a fantastic invention but also a rather pricey one... The cheapest clamps cost about £20 and go up to several hundred pounds.
I ideally wanted a weight of about 500g, so I cut down a length of manganese bronze which after turning would come out to around 500g. It was cut on the school's mechanical hacksaw to save some time (this was a one evening job).
I then had to decide which lathe to use, the school has a choice of many but when making another project I had soon discovered not all were in a good state. There is a lovely Myford Super 7 which someone else had set up for their needs so I couldn't use that, a small Axminster job whose chuck would not tighten correctly (teeth were very worn), a Colchester lathe who was no longer connected to the mains, and in another workshop a choice of another two Colchester lathes. One of these had a vicious chuck who would throw one jaw out at you, the other had a tailstock which would no longer correctly operate. I swapped the tailstock onto the lathe with a good chuck and I was able to begin!
The bronze was faced off to start with, and then turned down before using the tailstock to drill in several mm for the centre spindle of the turntable to lock into the turntable clamp. It was then parted off and was tidied up on the buffing machine.
A lovely simple little project, it works very well and saved a lot of cash! Will have to do one in timber next....
![[Image: IMG_0092.jpg]](http://i312.photobucket.com/albums/ll339/ljantiques/IMG_0092.jpg)
![[Image: IMG_0090.jpg]](http://i312.photobucket.com/albums/ll339/ljantiques/IMG_0090.jpg)
![[Image: IMG_0089.jpg]](http://i312.photobucket.com/albums/ll339/ljantiques/IMG_0089.jpg)
For ages I had wanted a turntable clamp. These are essentially heavy cylinders that sit over the centre of a record and mount on the turntable spindle. They are useful for slightly warped records that may not play well, they flatten out the record whilst it is being spun. As a vinyl lover this was a fantastic invention but also a rather pricey one... The cheapest clamps cost about £20 and go up to several hundred pounds.
I ideally wanted a weight of about 500g, so I cut down a length of manganese bronze which after turning would come out to around 500g. It was cut on the school's mechanical hacksaw to save some time (this was a one evening job).
I then had to decide which lathe to use, the school has a choice of many but when making another project I had soon discovered not all were in a good state. There is a lovely Myford Super 7 which someone else had set up for their needs so I couldn't use that, a small Axminster job whose chuck would not tighten correctly (teeth were very worn), a Colchester lathe who was no longer connected to the mains, and in another workshop a choice of another two Colchester lathes. One of these had a vicious chuck who would throw one jaw out at you, the other had a tailstock which would no longer correctly operate. I swapped the tailstock onto the lathe with a good chuck and I was able to begin!
The bronze was faced off to start with, and then turned down before using the tailstock to drill in several mm for the centre spindle of the turntable to lock into the turntable clamp. It was then parted off and was tidied up on the buffing machine.
A lovely simple little project, it works very well and saved a lot of cash! Will have to do one in timber next....
