I was just going to order a new grip ring to get as a spare as I have 3 players that use them, only to find all the parts sites have it discontinued...

Along with the m-holder the grip ring seems to be the legacy LD replacement part.

another blow to the lifespan of LD....

Very sad, I was thinking of how one could get a thin enough rubber and hole punches to make new grip rings.

Its all about the rubber, it is so thin I can't even imagine where to find it.

You can get the correct diameter hole punches but they will be expensive.

I found out about this lately too when I tried to order some for players I refurbish, This will end up effecting the LD-S9 and HLD-X9 which use a larger ring of the same rubber sheet. The DVL-90 and DVL-700 are also effected. Some of the other newer players use a white painted type surface which doesn't go bad but the RPM ring has a different number of openings so it will not work.

The ring on one of my DVL-90s is very bad and the other one also slips somewhat. Fortunately I had a new one for my 704.

I was thinking of the white coating also I have a 504 clone player which uses it, I was going have a look at it tomorrow

There most be some place to the source material used or something to replace it, or maybe adapt the other style somehow?
I though that the white rings were a bit thicker but not sure, it's also interesting that other players have a similar rubber ring but don't go bad.

Well that's not really true.
I noticed that my 3070 is starting to slip on some discs, and this uses a larger rubber ring that is not the same size as the players mentioned above.

So this rubber is something that we all need to look into.
Like I said before, if we can find out the thickness of the rubber we can make them ourselves OR we need to find an alternative material to put on like the white stuff
IF it would actually work.

How critical is the height of the rubber? Let's say we find a replacement rubber to use but is a tad bit higher for example. Would that then throw the alignment off due to the disc being higher on the spindle?

Far as being higher, a little might not hurt but being higher could effect the magnet holding strength and the top assembly has a ball bearing that spins on a pad that could be effected.

As for the 3070, I actually replaced the older units with the VEB1237 as it fits but not anymore. VEB1237 also fits the DVL-700/90

I should have put must of the time they don't fail, and it does look to be the same material on other players. so it doesn't surprise me.

I did some measuring and found the height to be just about equal to my thinnest feeler gauge, at 0.010". The inside diameter is about 1-7/16" and the outside is 1-3/4".

It does seem hard to find anything at that thickness , there are some things that come close. there is soling tape for shoes that has almost similar texture but is too thick . The circle design rubber mat is sold for flooring but on a much larger scale, there is also some tape for handrails that looks the same, it looks good but it might be to thick possibly? here is what they have to order.

Also there are Anti-Slip tapes, they are various materials most with a sandpaper like surface, maybe too abrasive
3M makes a tape that sort of resembles the white rings

The suggestion I had was to use a very thin, even layer of Plasti-Dip or something like it, a liquid rubber compound. If necessary it could be "tooled" for extra grip.
But, happily, I've not needed to test that so far.

Yeah, I would spray something on. I haven’t had an issue with grip rings lately (keep using your players and they last longer) but when I do I’ll post whatever I come up with. I may actually still have an OEM one but since those parts famously suck I’m not afraid of trying something else. I’m less worried about this than almost any other aspect of the Laserdisc part supply Götterdämmerung. It is literally just a rubber sticker. There must be hundreds of alternatives.

haha agreed, a bit of a challenge but most likely the least of our worries....... Bring on better 3D printing!

3D printing is the most overrated fad since day trading.

As I guy who has changed some mholders in my life I agree. Better to buy some broken machines and stockpile parts....

If I had any time on my hands I’d try fabricating an M-Holder and testing it out but I don’t even have the chance to extract a good one from one of my machines.

Since my DVL-90 is slipping badly and my attempts to clean it have failed, I'm going to go ahead and start trying out alternatives, today I picked some plasti dip at the auto parts store along with some steel tubing to use to make a punch for sheet material.

The one option is try the idea Publius has and paint on a ring of plasti dip, I'll try some samples with a brush first and see how it looks. they do have a spray can but I think its a wide spray like paint and I'm afraid it will go all over the place.

Other option is cutting a ring out of an anti slip material, I ordered a strip of the 3m anti slip tape which I can hopefully cut out with the tubing I got. The tape I got is 23 mil which is about twice the thickness of the oem ring, though its still .023 of an inch.

Depending on time and how things go I might end up testing both methods on the player, first thing will be testing the plasti dip since I'm not familiar with it. Then hopefully over the next week I can make up the punch tool, I ordered the tape last night so it will be a few days before I get it.

Of course any progress I'll post here.

As for the M-holder, I'd be really interested if it would be possible to plaster mold one for aluminum casting, I don't having any casting experience but I'd love to try, or at least pass it off to someone who can.

I think you’d have to be really good at casting to do an M-Holder in aluminum. Getting the bubbles out would be very tricky. Also, I don’t think the “axles” would be all that tough even if they looked it. This is kinda below the “minimum resolution” of cast alloys. If a company wanted to make something like that out of alloy they’d use powdered metal.

To me the best way to make the part is IP. This will run like $2000 probably at least but come on, some of the bread guys here drop on cables and unwatchable movies...I’d be very surprised if we couldn’t find the $$$ if someone presented a solid plan.

The next best way I can think of is hand fabrication out of various materials. I’m thinking epoxy, styrene, brass. The bulk of the part in one marierial with brass axles. These would take a long time to make but it’s my backup plan if we never get real plastic parts again. On a case by case basis I have no doubt I can make them.

The third option is maybe a hybrid of the two. If we use brass or some other strong material for the axles the rest of the part is less critical so maybe that could be cast in epoxy or 3D printed or whatever and the the axels would come later.

If anyone wants to lend me an M-Holder, PM me. I really don’t want to spend time extracting one...

Also, how many M Holders are there and what models use them? I’m assuming this is for the Gamma Turn decks like 704 and 99?

As for the plastidip, just mask the areas you don’t want to hit. The plus of plastidip is that it’s self leveling so spray if possible and let dry flat. It will almost certainly peel off without a problem so you should be able to get a few attempts to perfect it.

You could do a mold out of silicon or latex, make a wax tree for the M holder and then send those waxes to a foundry and get metal made from them.

This would be the easiest solution but I don't know if you can get a metal holder into where it goes as I've never owned a player that has one.

Other option would be the same to make the mold but then use a two part epoxy or polyester resin.
I used to do some hobby molding and its a real pain but can be done without any machinery to get good results without any bubbles, just lots of time and
also you need a really ventilated area.

I'm thinking about paint made to make concrete floors non-slippery, something that will last like the painted surface on the CDL-D406/504/505/604/etc.a nd DVL-919/909/91 players. I'm going see what I can find in a long term solution.

Ok so I painted on the plasti-dip, I made a few different attempts to get it how I liked, which was trying to get an even coat but also with some texture to it, ended up with putting a single coat smooth, then going back and lightly "sponging" with the brush while it was tacky.

After a few hours of drying it actually leveled out quite a bit, maybe not perfect but the wasn't what I was going for. not sure how it would compare to spray but brushed on it seemed to come out fine.

Fired up the player and....it works! So far just brief testing, but I did a few side changes and stops and it did really well, Once though it did slip on a spin up an fail to play, but that particular disc was giving me trouble before and I think the label is dirty.

Otherwise very smooth, quick side change and stops dead right away, the question is if it will hold up in the long term. I'm impressed so far, wasn't so sure of a first attempt but...so far so good...

Sounds promising! It will be interesting to see how well it sticks over time. I've got a CLD-2950 which is starting to slip so I'll be looking to fix that sometime soon.