Feickert analogue protractor....Owners impressions

As long as we're talking about tonearm alignment in general, I'd like to bring up the experience of my oldest audio friend (both in years of friendship and age). I went to his house to help him set up his new Dynavector Karat 17D3 in his Well Tempered Reference tonearm, using my Turntable Basics protractor, which I think falls into the category of an "arc-style" protractor. The experience was very stressful, because the platter of the WT tt will not stay stable without the drive belt to hold it up, because the WT tonearm is fixed in position by a very difficult to access nut underneath the table, and one must loosen that nut to adjust stylus overhang, because the WT tonearm also has only two holes in the headshell for cartridge mouting with no provision for fore and aft movement of the cartridge, and finally because the DV Karat seems to have an unusually short stylus-to-mounting hole distance. Every time I thought I had the DV stylus tip sitting in the right place, the act of tightening the nut under the table would inevitably twist the vertical shaft at the pivot end and throw out the alignment. We achieved some semblance of success after about 2 hours, but the combo sounded horrible, IMO, because I think the alignment was not good. He subsequently bought a Feikert; I don't know how that works, but he just told me that the alignment on the WT table and tonearm cannot be done with the Feikert, either. I think his frustration is due to the fundamental design of the WT and perhaps the unusually short cantilever on the DV Karat, but it points up the problems that can arise.

Dear Thom, We did use something straight and rigid (no joke intended) to extend the linear guide on the Turntable Basics protractor toward the true pivot of the WT tonearm, and I did use masking tape to immobilize the platter AND to try to keep it from flopping over. Eventually I think we did shim it. The confounding thing, along with the tiny cantilever of the 17D3, was the unavoidable tendency of the WT tonearm to twist when one tried to tighten down on the screw that holds it in place. At home with my Triplanar, I find the Turntable Basics very easy to use, but I agree with you on the difficulty of sighting down those lines toward the pivot, and on the drastic effect of a small error in sighting the pivot.

So, if one wants a custom-made arc protractor, shouldn't one supply to the maker the ACTUAL spindle to pivot distance, rather than the optimal theoretical one, which may not pertain to the arm for which the protractor is to be used? Forgive me if the question is redundant.