I have been using steel scissors, they are a pair of fingernail scissors and I
can't believe they
actually work but so far they work the best. The wire just snaps clean and
doesn't seem to
be crushed. I bought a pair of new carbide cutters but they must be junk,
because all they
do is mash the wire and won't even cut it. I am going to hunt up some *real*
cutters that
do the job right though. As for the SmallParts wire, what I got seems very
consistent. On my micrometer the 6 mil comes out to exactly 6 mil, and the
brand name Tonofones as well as
the SP 7 mil are exactly 7 mil. I do not know what company produced Tonofone
needles (?)
As for prepping the tips, what I settled on was to take a big chunk of a broken
record, and
holding the needle firmly in two fingers and the chunk in the other hand I
simply stroke the
tip back and forth in the grooves,
rotating the needle a little and randomly as I go. I'm pressing the needle in
a lot harder than
it would be while playing but not nearly hard enough to bend/damage it. Yes
it's murder on
the record grooves but it is just a hunk of a broken record anyway. As you
progress you can
feel the friction gradually disappear and the tip eventually glides in the
grooves. It's cool to
look at the tip afterwards - while rotating it I can see that the tip is
mirror shiny all the way
around. Only takes maybe 20-30 seconds to do one. I still break in a needle
with the usual
playing on an old record, but now only for about 10 seconds since it is
already polished.
Thanks much for the additional info, Greg.
Mark
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