25 Nov
2008
25 Nov
'08
12:58 a.m.
Sun Nov 23 Eric Smith wrote:
Nickel plating would definitely not work. Some of the
earliest drums
used cunife (copper/nickel/iron alloy) wire tightly wound around an
aluminum cylinder, then turned on a lathe to get a flat surface. ...
Hmmm . . . that technique might work for my 2N2/256 BSCP project!
It also occurs to me that the machining could be done with the drive
mechanics, provided it's rigid enough and you take very light cuts.
You would fabricate a cutter head that bolts in the same way as a R/W
head. To take a cut, you just tweak the adjustment screw(s) and turn
an additional "feed" screw to cut the track the right width.
Heck, you wouldn't even need the feed screw. Make the head so it can
slide laterally a millimetre or two, then you could move the cutter
head back and forth by hand, the same way the Fonly lathe works.
It also might be possible to just lap the R/W heads in with a tiny
amount of jewer's rouge, then carefully clean all the grit out and
readjust the heads to give the right gap.
-Bobby