SL-XX

An open source record lathe

In late 2021 I began the journey of trying to build my own record lathe to allow me to easily manufacture small runs of individual and experimental records on sustainable materials.

During the course of my build I’ve found the publicly available information on the building of record lathes rather lacking so with this project and it’s documentation I hope to be able to get some useful info out there. The end goal of this project is not just to build a working record lathe, but also to release all it’s associated design files under an open source license.

The overarching goal of the lathe itself it not to reach some form of audiophile perfection but rather to achieve a sound that is “good”.

A prerelease version of the record current version of the lathe, the SL-24, was successfully used to cut a run of unique records in August 2024.

I am working on finishing up the first release version which will hopefully be accompanied with additional documentation and blog posts.

  1. First test cuts
    First test cuts
  2. Construction of the carriage
    Construction of the carriage
  3. Construction of the gantry
    Construction of the gantry
  4. Test cuts with the completed gantry
    Test cuts with the completed gantry
  5. New more powerful head
    New more powerful head
  6. Casting the platter from concrete
    Casting the platter from concrete
  7. New concrete platter
    New concrete platter
  8. The end result?!
    The end result?!
  9. Nope! Still a lot of work to do.
    Nope! Still a lot of work to do.
  10. New gantry and head suspension
    New gantry and head suspension
  11. New precision stainless steel platter
    New precision stainless steel platter
  12. Custom carbide grinding setup
    Custom carbide grinding setup
  13. Stereo grooves!
    Stereo grooves!

Attachments

Related blog posts

Record Lathe, Pt.1

Wednesday September 21 2022, 1077 words — Introduction to my series on my DIY record lathe.
Filed under: Record Lathe

Hi, welcome to the first short introductory post in a series where I’m going to document my attempt at building my own record lathe!

Work on this started around a year ago, but I haven’t really gotten around to documenting any of it outside of some posts on twitter, so I felt it was time to put this project’s documentation into a less ephemeral form.

Wait, what’s a record lathe?!

Good question! You know records, right? Round, black, shiny discs that contain music in a spiral groove?

Read more…

See all related posts »