chartz wrote:

http://www.hi-fi-accessories-1.com/digital-stylus-force-gauge.htm

They state, in relation to jewlers scales from ebay...

In reality these scales gave large errors such as reading 2.1 grams for tracking force when the actual measurement was only 1.4 grams. We can vouch that the scales we are offering are accurate and have received excellent feedback from users

That is not what I found! I use some ebay scales that cost me about £12. I have tested with coins etc. of known weight and they appear accurate and repeatable every time down to about 1/10 of a gram - they are NOT fussy where the contact force is applied either! Only problem is you need to remove the platter to account for the thickness and have the stylus at record-level..

I'm not familiar with stuff that is sold as "jeweller's scales", but many of them seem exactly the same as those sold as powder scales for cartridge reloading. And I can assure those work correctly, as gross errors as the one mentioned above would be outright dangerous and possibly risk blowing the gun in your face! When used correctly, they are accurate to 10 mg or so.

The problem with them is just what you say Step1, they are usually too thick for measurements at the record level. The shown weight might be something else than truth when the arm is pointing at the ceiling. As with most engineering, you need to know how to measure and what other phenomena might affect the reading, in addition to having the instrument...

So the distortion didn't disappear until I pushed the tracking force up to 1.6 g for my MMC2. There's still some inner groove distortion in the last song on each side, but that's to be expected.