Clamps for VPI Scout

I agree with your findings madfloyd.
No matter what the weight of thre Stainless Heavyweight, it will, or never can be the correct weight for every single instance.

You may find 10 in a 100 LPs, that are perfectly flat, no dishing, in which the Heavyweight will work perfectly for both sides of the LP.

But, in many cases, you'll find an LP which is dished, meaning the LP lays Convex on one side, and concave on the other, but without Lip Warps. Then what do you do?

The answer is a Threaded Clamp, in which you can personally adjust just the right amount of clamping force to lessen these anomalies.

For me, it's worth it to let the Platter spin a revolution, or two, to see how the LP reacts to clamping force. I may add a little more, or a little less clamping force to lessen the Cartridge bobbing up, and down like it's on a roller coaster ride. Those hills can be heard, and IMO really detract from good vinyl playback.

Then there's what I call the rare occasional weird Lip Warp, on which nothing short of throwing it in the Furutec disc flattener, or using a Periphery Ring will resolve. Like a few have said, LP's, with such severe warps should be given away, or chucked in the garbage. For the few that one might have. is it worth it, to spend $500 to recitfy? Mark

But you can't use the washer with a weighted clamp - right? I tried doing that with the VPI stainless steel weight and the edges of LPs were wobbly. Someone told me in another thread that you need to remove the washer when using that weight.

I have tried just about every clamp available and my top three choices are:

1. Teres Audio clamp, (mine is Cocobolo)

2. The new one piece BDR clamp

3. The older two piece BDR clamp.

I agree with Markd51, the washer is mandatory.

There's numerous Clamps out there, from peanuts, to $1500 for the Harmonix, which I doubt no matter how good, is worth the cost.

There's the Michell, the Sota, Black Diamond Racing, and probably a few others I'm forgetting about.

What I did, was I used the bottom Coaster of the older 2-piece BDR Clamp, and had my machinist friend make a large heavy, but low profile Threaded Puck Clamp from Stainless Steel, which was a much more cost efficient option for me with my HW-19 Table. He's considered making more on a custom basis if it could be a worthy endeavor?

With the Stock VPI, or BDR 2-Piece Clamp I was having problems with the Clamp touching the inside of Dust Cover when not in use.

With VPI Tables, since the Spindle is 1/4"-20 threaded, staying with a Threaded System will be the best way to go IMO. The Rubber Washer as you know permits the LP to properly-fully conform-couple to the Platter's Surface. In effect very similar to a Vacuum System, without the hassles, or possibility of introduced noise.
Mark