Back in the day, one of the few reasons to prefer compact cassette tape to vinyl was the fact you could record it at home in very good fidelity. Sure, if you had the scratch, you could go out and get a small batch of records made from that tape, but the machinery to do it was expensive and not always easy to come by, depending where you lived. That goes double today, but we’re in the middle of a vinyl renaissance! [ronald] wanted to make records, but was unable to find a lathe, so decided to take matters into his own hands, and build his own vinyl record cutting lathe.
[ronald’s] record cutting lathe looks quite professional.It seems like it should be a simple problem, at least in concept: wiggle an engraving needle to scratch grooves in plastic. Of course for a stereo record, the wiggling needs to be two-axis, and for stereo HiFi you need that wiggling to be very precise over a very large range of frequencies (7 Hz to 50 kHz, to match the pros). Then of course there’s the question of how you’re controlling the wiggling of this engraving needle. (In this case, it’s through a DAC, so technically this is a CNC hack.) As often happens, once you get down to brass tacks (or diamond styluses, as the case may be) the “simple” problem becomes a major project. Continue reading “DIY Record Cutting Lathe Is Really Groovy”→
[BarryAbrams] found some 90s speakers on the side of the road. At first he thought he might have made a real score, but his coworker who knows about this sort of thing (we all have one) let him know they were merely average. Undaunted, he removed the speakers from their MDF housing, fixed a small dent in one of the tweeters, and got to work.
He cut a new frame for the speakers out of plywood. He adorned the plywood box with maple and walnut from a local supplier. The box then got a coat of urethane. His skill at sign making showed in the final finish, and the wood looks very good. Our only complaint is the straight legs instead of the slightly angled and tapered ones common to mid-century modern furniture style.
The electronics are a Chinese amp and a Sonos knock-off. [Barry] only needed to control the volume and power for the speaker set. He came up with a clever 3D-printed knob and switch configuration. When the volume is turned all the way down the speaker set turns off.
The end result sounds and looks better than anything he could get for the $125 US Dollars he spent on the project. We certainly wouldn’t complain if this were a fixture in our living space.
![photograph of [ronald's] setup](https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/groovy_lathe.png?w=301)
