Meltrope 3c Sound-box ?

[leels1]

The whole point of the screw back is to be able to alter the compression which allegedly alters the sound reproduction.

I have many Meltrope I, II and IIIs. There’s never been a problem with the I and II but the III have had the seized back ring.

Unfortunately the only way I managed to get the ring off is to use a dremmel to gently cut it off and then braize it back together with an extra piece of brass to bridge the small gap. It doesn’t look the prettiest but you can recreate the knurled effect on the ring and it’ll then screw back ok. Once the ring is back on, you can hardly tell it’s been altered.

I only realised recently that the III with the removable chuck was designed to fit with the needle sharpener for BCNs so you didn’t have to unscrew it all the time. Great design - especially given there were two designs of sharpener. The smaller one is a lot simpler and easier to use but the bigger one with the “crank” handle is engineered beautifully.

Yeah, but in my humble opinion, there is absolutlely no reaon at all ' to use a dremmel to gently cut it off and then braize it back together with an extra piece of brass to bridge the small gap' as a new soft rubber 'backing' and a bit of moving around will accomplish a perfect fit. The seized ring does not have to be removed at all.

No ?

How would you remove the old rubber (which 9/10 times is perished) and fit a new one properly without removing the back ring?
The purpose was to put the soundbox on the tone arm, then tighten the ring to achieve the compression needed by having an “oversized” rubber.