Will,
The weights need to be wider than the nuts, so you can drill them out to a snug-ish fit. The fit doesn't need to be exact. I super glued mine on and they worked great.
The wire thingy is what Joe referred to as "Paul's adjustable VTF tweak", invented by my partner. It's just a paper clip bent to fit into the holes at the end of the weights. Swivelling it forward or aft alters VTF over a range of a few hundredths of a gram. Quick and easy fine tuning of VTF without moving that blasted counteweight.
As to Wendell's question, equalizing the weights isn't critical. Rega doesn't even equalize lateral weight on its own its arms (look at the asymmetrical bearing housings on an RB-300 for example). That said, you could easily equalize the weights during the drilling out.
Highly worthwhile tweak, and TWL's thread gets the credit for re-launching my enthusiasm for vinyl playback. We outgrew (and outspent) our tweaked OL Silver years ago, but we never would have the rig we enjoy today without TWL's enthusiasm and help (though we'd have a lot more money in the bank!).
The weights need to be wider than the nuts, so you can drill them out to a snug-ish fit. The fit doesn't need to be exact. I super glued mine on and they worked great.
The wire thingy is what Joe referred to as "Paul's adjustable VTF tweak", invented by my partner. It's just a paper clip bent to fit into the holes at the end of the weights. Swivelling it forward or aft alters VTF over a range of a few hundredths of a gram. Quick and easy fine tuning of VTF without moving that blasted counteweight.
As to Wendell's question, equalizing the weights isn't critical. Rega doesn't even equalize lateral weight on its own its arms (look at the asymmetrical bearing housings on an RB-300 for example). That said, you could easily equalize the weights during the drilling out.
Highly worthwhile tweak, and TWL's thread gets the credit for re-launching my enthusiasm for vinyl playback. We outgrew (and outspent) our tweaked OL Silver years ago, but we never would have the rig we enjoy today without TWL's enthusiasm and help (though we'd have a lot more money in the bank!).