low tech paper arm tubes

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have read here over time and see that wooden tone arms seem to sound very good There are examples of arrow shafts that have been solid and laminated as well as versions made from thin rolled wood veneer as well. I wondered if anybody had considered using paper as a roll laminate to make a tone arm tube? There are all kinds of papers with various fiber contents and structures.
I had thought that an assortment of different papers could be tested. The papers could be first surface sealed with a 5-1 diluted mix of water to weldbond (a PVA adhesive) on both sides using a light spray from a mister bottle. Once dried these sheets could be rolled into tubes with a thin layer of weldbond on one surface and taped in place to set up. This provides a rigid well damped tube. One could also make a tapered tube by rolling the paper at an angle or by simply pulling one end of the rolled tube out extending its length then tightening the roll. This would result with a tube with a small diametre at one end and a larger on at the other. The matreial is cheap and easy to play with and the variety of materials is endless. Combinations of different papers would alsp be easy to do. For someone without a lath or shop to work in this can be done almost for free on the kitchen table in a very short time period. Sections of shaped metal tubes from golf club shafts and the like could be used as forms for variable density laminates with fine thin hard paper as the first layer and a second layer of thicker paper like blotting paper in the middle covered by a top layer of the hard thin paper. A kind of paper version of plywood. Just a thought to help those with limited tools to experiment with thin light rigid wood based arm tubes. Hope this is of interest to some here. Regards Moray James.
 
Scary,

We've been thinking along the same lines - you could get some very interesting results by laminating different sorts of paper - and I think the results would be good.

You could also include fine fabrics in the 'roll' to assist in directional stiffness. Something like silk would do very well!

You can then do interesting things with glues as well - crazyglue with natural fabrics produce a very interesting composite...

Owen
 
other posibilities...

if you were to roll a damp paper tube in baking soda to pick up a uniform powder layer and them mist (in a really well ventilated outside location please) with crazy glue you end up with a kind of baking soda concreat where the crazy glue bonds all the powder together. Very uniform and stiff.
I am sure that one of us must know an artist that works with or makes paper there ought to be a wealth of construction techniques. Things like building on a tapered form first layer hard thin paper second layer thread wound clockwise third layer hard thin paper fourth layer thread wound counterclockwise fith layer hard thin paper. the posibilities are endless. Regards Moray James.
 
Good idea!

that was kind of the idea I was thinking about with the laminate using blotting paper with hard paper skins. Paper mache could be used to form all kinds of smooth transitions and reinforcemenrts around connecting parts like the headshell or around stiffening ridges made fro wood (like balsa). One might sand a really hard wood into fine powder and make a thin slurry with 5-1 dilute weldbond and actually spray up layers onto a form one at a time to the desired thickness. Expanded craft foam coud be cut to shape and then top coated this way yielding a ultra light internally damped core with a composite wood skin. Working on a form one could mist the form with 5-1 weldbond and sprinkle with Sitka Spruce powder allowing the powder to set and then tapping off all the powder that did not stick then repeat. In this way one could build up uniform ultra thin layers of Sitka Spruce to form the equvilant of a fine piano sounding board. That ought to make a fine tone arm. Sitka Spruce is considered to be the best choice for sounding boards in musical instruments. Hemp might also be an interesting choice od materials to use with this kind of construction technique. Small bits of hemp rope could be powderized in an electric coffee grinder (as could any other small bits of wood) heck you could even make an tone arm out of coffee beans, the starbuck arm. Just too many posibilities but it sure make for interesting discussion. One could make exotic geometric mechanical structures usinf thin lengths of balsa wood and then reinforce the structure with multiple layers of powdered wood top coats. You could mix in carbon black into your wood powder to add additional strength. You can buy diamond powder as well which could be used as and add mixture. Arms could be fabricated from the same base material as that of your cartridge body which should make for excellent transmission of energy. Any more ideas? Regards Moray James.
 
I'd try rolling papers...

the old 12" long ones, with matching rollers. Stuff full of whatever, and then paint with PVA. Once dry push out the contenets, let air out and reuse if neccessary., or use hemp rope .. :tilt:


ok, even a drinking straw could be used... just re-inforce it with balsa lengthwise. The toughest part may be attaching a head shell , but a solid one could be fashioned, and a hole drilled through it longitudially..
 

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Hi, i think you guys are really on to something here.
There will be minor issues in reinforcing the joins to structural parts like the headshell and the bearing and weight mountings, but i can see that you could let in very slim laminations of non-oily hardwood (that will bond nicely to the paper) and laminate that up with auminium (that will epoxy-glue nicely to the wood). Should be very good structurally.

This is really like doing tiny vesions of composite-based stuff like car or boat bodies, where you need to let in thread bobbins etc.

A thought: for a tapered tube, how about wax candle former? Will slide out easily afterwards and you can even get very slim, tapered ones about the right diameter.

Err... one other thought, paper arm tube are gonna grow/shrink/warp with the weather. A sheet of A4 paper can change size more than 1.5mm if you run it through a laser printer and drop its humidity. OK if you don't mind re-setting your arm whenever it's rainy :)
regards, Jeff
 
Re stability.....

Jeff: given the style of construction (laminate wraps) and the fact that all layers are sealed with dilute PVA and bonded with PVA and further that the laminates are (for the most part) biaxially oriented (more than less) non woven I don't think that you could do much more to insure stability. As far as hydroscopics go that should be 3/5's of diddly and if you are concerned you can alway coat the tube with laquer. I can't imaginr that this style of construction would not be better with regard to strutural stability than solid wood tone arms.
Good idea regarding the candle form. One additional thought is that if you wanted an irregular shape (ie. torpeedo) you could form a candle to the desired dimensions and use as your base form and when done simply remove the wax by melting in the oven, in bronze work this is called the lost wax method. You would want to use a low melt temperature wax like Bee's wax.
Nanook's suggestion regarding cigarette paper in the long 12" lengths is interesting as this type of paper is very thin and also very strong for its thickness. Known as rice paper I think I recall reading somewhere that it contained no rice at all.
Perhaps there are some out there that are experienced in origami who could contribut to thoughts on structural design. A star shaped cross section would make a very rigid core. Regards Moray James.
 
That's right....

I had for the most part been thinking about traditional simple paper structures where base pulps are hand made and pressed to dry but with machine made papers you have got grain orientation options that can as you say be put to good use.
I was also thinking about popped and puffed grains as core structure materials as they are very light and strong due to thier expanded structure. There is also the posibility of large size crystals grown with sugars and the like. Another thought that came to mind when miniwatt mentioned starch was to make a bread doe with PVA mixed into the water and form a bread that is very light (lots of baking powder) and open in structure like french bread. The open cell structure bread could then be fashioned into the core for an arm tube and baked a second time to totally harden and dry. This core could then be wrapped with a laminate of paper to provide a tough durable hard skin. Just an aside - weldbond is used as an add mix to concreat and plasters and grout to increase strength and resistance to moisture. "Bread doe tone arms" could be baked inside two part tubes that could be openrd after baking. This would not only the nature of simplify construction but also provide an intergal skin in the form of crust. Uniform size would also result using this method. Wood powders could also be introduced into the doe mix. In this way you could litterally grow a wooden arm tube with an open cell core structure. Once dry the tube could be treated with PVA or laqure or any number of air drying oils (linseed or tung) to seal it and provide further strength. Sugard could also be of use as an add misture as they would provide structural integrity due to thier crystaline structure. Any more ideas out there? Regards Moray James.
 
paper arm tubes, etc..

Moray, perhaps good quality "art" type or "craft" type papers could be used. (I don't mean construction paper or any of that sort, but rather hand made , random orientated fibre type papers., as in "craftsman"). Some are quite light weight. Hmmm ...., use a straw as a former or said tapered candle stick moulds.

Some sort of hemp paper would be my personal choise--Canadian grown. Very strong fibres. Perhaps the ultimate (or near ultimate) long length natural fibres (Silk I guess would "stronger", but I don't think any "tougher" , in a technical sense of the words).

As far as "traditional woods" for tone arm construx, I've been curious about good old hard maple drumsticks.. $14 cdn, the pair.
 
For a easy to obtain pulp paper - look no further than the tissue box, and it should be fairly easy to work with...

Personally, I'd use lacquer to coat the finished piece, and to bond additional parts with.

The only downside I can see is alignment will need jigs, but they're easy (ish) to make.

As these composites will be using a little adhesive (I hope ;) ) they should be sandable too for final shaping (and/or alignment).

Just some more thoughts

Oh, and to make it everything proof, use modelmakers dope...


Owen
 
"Bread doe tone arms" could be baked inside two part tubes...

I don't know what you have been smoking, but I want some ;)

But (slightly) seriously... a lot of these are variations on the theme of fibers & adhesive. So, given that carbon fiber is cheap and easy to use, I guess you would be wanting to improve on carbon fiber in some respect. Density? Rigidity? Appearance? Some other property?

Some other of your ideas use particles (e.g. coffee beans) rather than fibers, and adhesive. I think anything like this will be weaker, and therefore require higher density, than a material made of fibers.

What about bones, or slivers of bone bonded together?
 
Great ideas.....

I am just tryint to get outside of the box for a while and see other possible alterative. The idea of baking bread made primarily with sitka sprude poweder is that of the sonic qualities of that material. The idea behind bread is that it is the most simple way for a diy to make thier own solid foam structure with natural organic materials. Yes bread is not as rigid as carbon fiber but once fully dry and then reinforced with eithe glue or air drying oil it would be very stiff and more importantly very lossy and well damped. I think that bone meal would be the choice of materials to go up against sitka spruce as the first material of choice. There would of course be a fair bit of necessary experimentation neceaasry in finding the right mix of ingredients and baking temp etc. and choice of yeast but once done you can include it with your favorite cook book on audio. I really think that an open cell structure is the way to go and the fact that the cell sturcture will be randon in size and shape are a bonus. Short of crystal structures can any of you think of a better structure than open cell foam that is made from natural materials? Regards Moray James.
 
Moray, not paper but...

one of my personal faves in natural materials...bamboo!

Light, easy to get anywhere , essentially straight. Very high strength to weight ratio. No cooking, no baking no smoking required ';)'

strong enough to use as high scaffolding in Asia, strong enough for a tonearm. Someplace there was even a bicycle made of bamboo (ok, the tubes were traditional steel lugs glued to bamboo tubes)
 
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