Many stylus manufacturers will tell you that custom disks are the designs most often requested for custom fabrication quotes. Like handprints, it seems as though each disk stylus is unique. They are available in an infinite range of diameters, lengths, and thicknesses. There is no “one size fits all” when it comes to disk styli. Here’s an example of a typical, if terse, specification we recently received via email from a Canadian client: “M2, 6 mm carbide disk, 0.75 thick, 82 mm long, carbide stem and disk.”
We get a lot of requests like that. Each has widely different specifications. Customers often ask us why we don’t offer more disk styli in our catalog and our online store. The reason is that everyone wants something different. Disk styli are our most requested build-to-order items, by far. In this article, we’ll discuss the fundamentals of disk styli, how they’re made, used, and qualified, and how to obtain the best disk stylus for your job.