Is there a best cartridge track force gauge?

Eldartford,

SOME stainless steels are non-magnetic.

Other stainless steels are slightly magnetic, probably to a degree that could readily affect the small forces involved in stylus downforce measurement and adjustment.

Whether a particular stainless steel object is magnetic or not, and to what degree, depends on both the alloy and the way it was worked or machined into the final product.

Dougdeacon...Perhaps you should say it the other way around.."SOME stainless steels" are magnetic. The commonly used ones are nonmagnetic. I never ran across one that was magnetic, although I can believe that metallurgists could cook up a formula if they tried.

My Shure gauge may be plated stainless steel, if there is such a thing, but it not unplated stainless steel. I too have never seen magnetic or even marginally magnetic stainless steel, but I guess if you reduce the percentage of chromium it could happen. I am only mildly interested in what the metal is. I am dismayed that anyone would make a cartridge gauge that uses normal steel.

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Great thread, thanks guys....
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Rgds,
Larry
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The one I have is ancient, a Shure fromthe 60's or 70's...and it is magnetic as hell!!...When I got back into vinyl some years back, and mounted my new Glider, it snapped together with the scale so tightly that I thought the stylus was stuck in the groove!!.. I was sure my new $750 cartridge was toast!!... When it pulled apart I know my blood pressure went negative, I was so releived.
Time for a new one, and surely non-magnetic.

Carl