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Thought I'd post an update to how I am making my homemade tungsten needles.
I am using .006" wire from Smallparts.com, it is extremely cheap at only a couple of bucks per 60 inches of straight wire. That should be enough to last anybody many years worth of personal needle use.

I mount them in regular old finishing nail shafts, after I peed the head flat. I flatten out the top to a curve with my dremel, then cut a slot in it. Then I hold the wire into the slot and crush it closed enough to hold the wire. Snip the wire to the appx. length I want with scissors, then I either hammer or use pliers to really crush the end holding the wire tip. I do all this with my glasses off, I'm extremely nearsighted so with them off I'm a human microscope Just saying this is close steady work and you will need some magnification. I then use the dremel to CAREFULLY shape the nail tip surrounding the wire tip into a roughly pointed shape. Sometimes I solder the end too but I'm not sure if that's really necessary, just makes me feel better.
A bonus might be that this way, if I happen to wear a needle to the nub, the record will hit the soft solder first instead of the steel and won't cause any damage before I can pull it off.

Then I shave down the tip to the final length using a simple diamond dust nail file. This helps get past any fraying that might have occured when the wire was snipped. Finally I hold the needle firmly and stroke it back and forth relatively hard into the grooves of a junk record, while also rotating it, so I end up with a nice polished tip all the way around. The end is mirror shiny, and up close it looks like a flat cone. You can instead just run the needle on a junk record for a minute or two, but I prefer the needle be polished all the way around and not just in one direction.

A note on .oo6" wire... I find I have to make the tip a little shorter than one would typically see on a Tungstone needle, since they used more like .0065 or .007 wire. Tonofones used .007" My shorter tips hold up very well against bending under the weight of my Orthophonic reproducer. Less plays that way but who cares when the needles only cost 2 cents to make anyway. I still think I'm getting around 50 to 100 plays per needle.

Hope this helps anybody wanting to try making their own needles. I only started this because I have a Victor 10-50 with the changer, and I love the convenience of that changer! My needles are hideous and I'm sure there are better ways to make them, but they work for me.

Frenchy

Interesting! But I don't understand the following: "...after I peed the head flat. I flatten out the top to a curve with my dremel..."
Is there a misspelling somewhere? How do you flatten a top to a curve?
Are there different sizes of finishing nails? What are they..brass or something else?
What type of saw do you use to cut the slot?
How long would you say it takes to make a needle once you're up and running?
Thanks for posting this!
Bob

Oops, was typing AND thinking too fast!
I peen the head of the nail flat with about 6 good whacks, so it's about twice as long and half as thick as the original head. I run the dremel cut-off wheel across the top of it so that it is curved instead of just being flat, and make sure I'm down to solid metal since the peening leaves a jagged edge. I cut the slot into the center of that using the dremel as a saw, with the cut being perpendicular to the length of the flattened head. The two sides get squished or hammered back together to hold the wire firmly. I crush the sides back together *good* so that the end is square again or even flattened in the opposite direction, but it only has to be done enough to securely hold the wire tight.

I'm only flattening the head in the first place because even with the dremel cutoff wheel I can only make the slot so thin. If I just cut a slot in the original head, then there isn't enough metal left there to work with for making a good solid base for the wire tip.

I am using "3d 1&¼ inch" steel finishing nails, of course at the end I trim them to the length of a standard steel needle. These nails are about the same thickness of a Tungstone or Tonofone shank. I was thinking about trying brass, but I saw another thread where they said Tungstones were actually steel but painted or flashed with the brass color. Anybody verify this? The Tonofones I have definitely are solid brass shanks. I assume brass might result in a little lower volume or a different tone but I doubt I could ever tell the difference. Brass would probably go thru this hammering process with less chance of cracking - if I go too fast and sloppy, I can end up with cracking in the head and have to throw it out.

I'd guess it takes me about 5 minutes to make a needle if I'm on a roll, just a lot of switching of tools, trimming, cutting, mounting in the vise, hammering. Sometimes I use my large vise grips for crimping the head and wire back together, in stages, they have a lot of leverage. I've cobbled together about 50 of them which is enough to last me several years I'm sure.

Thanks for the clarifications! This certainly gives me something to think about.
Bob

Very cool! Have you possibly some pictures to post?

I don't think I can take a closeup enough pic of them to be any good. Suffice it to say they are all very ugly and no two are alike. Sometimes I have to bend the tip-end of the nail a bit to end up with the tip being straight when it is mounted in the needlebar. Plus I always eyeball the tip after it is in soundbox, and rotate the needle if necessary. I wish I had the quality control that Victor did : \

Hey, you're on something with it and they work, that is what really counts. Maybe there's a even a way to restore old ones?

There's an article here:

http://www.hoosierantiquephonographsoci ... -phone.pdf

about how Victor did it.

I also have made some of my own tungsten needles, using the same source of wire as Frenchy. I will try to get some pics & description up here soon.

Smallparts.com only lists .005 and .009 wire as far as I can tell. Any suggestions for finding the .006 wire you've mentioned?
Bob

barnettrp21122 wrote:Smallparts.com only lists .005 and .009 wire as far as I can tell. Any suggestions for finding the .006 wire you've mentioned?
Bob

interesting, I bought mine from smallparts, through Amazon.com, here:

http://www.amazon.com/Tungsten-Wire-99- ... 987&sr=8-1

But now it says it's unavailable.