Feickert Protractor - anyone use one?

The $250 Feickert does indeed measure spindle-to-pivot accurately.

A $2 ruler does also.

More money for whiskey and music!

More agreement with Stiltskin.

Even if the lines on the Feickert were as fine as those on the Mint, which they're not, it would still suffer from the fatal flaw of not being built on a mirror.

Without the parallax effect afforded by a mirror, it's impossible to by sure you're sighting precisely down the line you're trying to align the cantilever to. Unless you've used a mirrored protractor you've no idea how easy it is to be off by several degrees - which defeats the whole purpose.

Henry,

FIRST
What Dan_Ed said.

SECOND
My TT spindle has a lathe mark that's dead center. Easy to see and measure precisely.

Your spindle doesn't have a center mark? You can make your own - for free.

How? Simple. Mark a dot, as tiny and precise as you please, on a square of Scotch Tape. Stick that on your spindle and spin the platter. If the dot oscillates it's not centered. Move the tape, spin again, reiterate until the dot remains stationary. Voila!

(It took me longer to type that than it takes to actually do it. It's so easy it's trivial.)

THREE
Your tonearm pivot point is "ill-defined"? No problem. Use the same trick. I've done this with Rega and OL arms and it should work with most arms where the bearing center isn't obvious or accessible to a ruler. Again, so easy it's trivial.

FOUR
Your ruler deflects over a 9-12" span? Even I'm not THAT cheap. Buy a sturdier ruler.

As I said, I've used a Feickert and I agree it's well made and measures S2P quite accurately. However, I can and do perform the same task with similar accuracy for 99% less money. So can anyone with a little thought and care. It's not the cost of the tools, it's how you use them.