Queue Barry White music. Oh yeah! I ought to explain at this point that I am, in fact, referring to my IT-M300 head height and penetration depth gauge. lol I was incredibly lucky to have one of these super rare and sought-after gauges almost literally fall into my lap whilst out on a cassette deck haul collection. I arranged to buy some beautiful condition but non-functioning Nakamichi decks from someone who was thinning down their herd. He threw in some nice extras, including the gauge, but sadly it didn't come with the accompanying alignment bar, rendering it pretty useless. I graciously accepted it and shoved it in a drawer for later. About a year later someone on Tapeheads very kindly sent me a copy of the alignment bar which turned out to be woefully out of spec - too long and too thin, again rendering it pretty useless when used in combination with the main gauge plate. Willy Herman in the US makes, or rather used to make, a copy of the M300 gauge and I wondered if he might have a spare bar he could sell me. I shot an email off a couple of weeks ago and to my delight he responded almost immediately saing that I could have one of the last 2 bars he had if I covered the postage to NL. What an incredibly kind thing to do and what a stroke of luck for me that he still had a small number in stock since ceasing production! It arrived today and as expected it's within specification and works like a charm! I could measure head height with the other bar (sort of) but I couldn't measure for correct head penetration. A bit less critical than head height but nice to have full functionality all the same! So I'm looking forwards to a weekend of fun, fully penetrative activity whilst calibrating some of my cassette decks and portables. Woot! Head penetration measurement Head height measurement I have a perfect length now >.<
MODS, MODS, MODS /JK lol, clicked on this post because of the title. What I suspected.... is.... true. Bruh, the amount of innuendo in this post is... frightening. Nice tool. Does this work on boomboxes and Walkmans?
There was a full set of Nakamichi Alignment Tools on Craigslist a year or so ago, lot's of rare cool tools but they wanted something like $1500 for the set. That's a pretty neat set up and it looks like it makes it pretty easy to get the right height.
I'm an Englishman. We're born that way. It should work on all cassette-based players. You have to remove the door of some Walkmans to mount it, but then I'm pretty sure most Walkmans are at both fixed head height as well as penetration depth. Don't quote me on that though, I have only used this on fullsize decks and my TCD5's. Someone will chime in with a clarification hopefully...
$1500?? Holy moly! That's just blatant profiteering, but then someone motivated will pay that I bet a Nakamichi tech or such. I've been informed of the current market value of this IT M300 gauge and it's also bonkers! I must say however that the gauge has been invaluable for calibrating cassette decks and extremely useful in one particular case where I just couldn't trace the source of tape-edge crumpling. The head height measurement revealed a mis-alignment which was subsequently easily rectified. So I think for something that performs its' core function and does it very well due to the build quality and specifications then it's obviously going to command a fair bit of wonga to someone who uses such a device on a repeat/commercial basis. I'm sort of getting into refurbing/calibrating decks on a commercial basis now so it's great to have it at hand. I sold a few Nakamichi decks recently after having used it as part of a thorough re-calibration regimen and it has proven its' value already! Happy days.
I swear I have photos from the listing but can't find them. They're Nak Branded Tools, it makes you wonder how much they were new. Here's the tilt guage currently on USA ebay for $1300 This website lists other Nak Tools, unfortunately I don't remember everything in the listing. https://www.cassettedeck-service.com/
Well, I can sort of appreciate the asking price for that particular gauge - proprietary design/engineering, rarity, functionality etc. But I wonder by what margin it is actually better than using the M300 gauge for the same purpose. I propose it may even have caveats. I wonder by what margin and how easily that Nak tilt gauge can go out of spec relative to the M300 gauge? If you consider that the Nak gauge is an assembly consisting of many more components and interfaces than the simpler M300 gauge then there's obviously more to go wrong with it. In engineering, the golden rule is to keep any system as simple as possible and use as few components as possible. This from my background in nuclear engineering - mechanical handling equipment in highly radioactive environments. (I worked on projects for MOX and SIXEP for BNFL Sellafield years ago). Hence, the M300 gauge relies on a measurable, fixed and fairly constant dimensional relationship between just 2 components to measure head tilt, assuming the dimensions are correct in the first place, but then these are easy to verify. This is why I'll be seekeing a competent machinist to give me a No.8 stst mirror-finish for the alignment bar I just got for my M300. This would improve the detection for the margin of tilt error by matching the surface finish of the head. Admittedly, it also relies on deft use of a torch, a dark room and your eyesight to verify the results but I still think it negates any possibility of getting 'false positive' results from the Nak tilt gauge. Concur? Is the Nak gauge applicable for other decks/devices? I can't find info to verify that. Here's a video showing how to use the Abex gauge (Same as M300). I think I'll stick with my M300
There's probably a spec to measure every so often to keep it in alignment, just like any precision tool. I think looking at some LED lights would make the process very easy but it doesn't look like it does much except the lights go on if the tape is tilted enough to activate some micro-switches. I buy tools for cars that might have very limited use but when you use them, you really appreciate how a simple tool can make things so much easier to repair.
