DIY TT in progress

rwortman

Active Member
I just kind of set it together to see how it was starting to look. I still need to do a 1/2 roundover on the edge of the oak base and stain/finish it. The Corian plinth will be sitting on vibration isolators.
 
WOW !

I'm jealous. I could never even build a model car much less a TT from scratch. Looking good :thmbsp:
 
holy smokes, wortman! mas fotos, por favor, s'il vous plait....details, details...

shrinkboy
 
Well, I friend of mine came into a large supply of NIB and very slightly used Sonus Formula 4 unipivot tonearms. I have been selling them on Ebay for about a year and a half, wanting the whole time to try one out. I mentioned that to a prospective buyer and he offered to give me some TT parts in exchange for a tonearm that needed some repair. The parts were from a solidly made Sansui DD table from the late 70's. The motor/platter and electronics were in good shape but the rest of it was trashed. I know that in many audiophile circles direct drive is not approved of but the price was right so I decided to have a go. I spend about a month thinking about what to mount the motor and arm to. MDF, some exotic hardwood or plywood, some sort of contrained layer sandwich? I though of using Corian. Its quite dense, I think it is as vibration absorptive as MDF and much easier to get an attractive finish. I wanted black but since it is used mostly for countertops it is sold in rather large pieces which are pretty expensive. I found a place on the internet that sold Corian cutting boards and would make you one any size you wanted (up to some maximum) They didn't have black but they did have some fairly attractive color options. I bought one 14 x 17, ($62) polished it up a bit, made an oak base and here you see it. I still have some prettying up to do on the base and I have to decide whether I want to mount the electronic board inside the base or put it in a separate box with a cable running to the TT. The Corian plate will sit on some soft polyurathane vibration isolators that I bought from McMaster Carr. I will either use the stock Sansui feet or maybe buy something else. Haven't decided that yet either. I just ordered an Ortofon 540 from Juki to put on it. Not sure what I am going to do with it when I am all done. I love my CS5000, but I guess a man can use two TT's. I think I will hook it up to my PC for a while and dub my favorite vinyl to CD for listening in the car.
 
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Update !!!!!DIAL UP WARNING!!!!!

Base is done, sanded, steel wooled and oil finished. I decided to use the feet that came with the original TT under the base. Plinth supports/vibration isolators installed and leveled. I have decided to put the power supply in an external box for convenience, to keep the transformer away from the main assembly because the fancy high end TT's do it that way. I was going to use a plastic or metal project box but my wife suggested it would look better in a wooden box stained to match so that is the next step. Now I have to decide whether to make one or buy one. After that I have to make the a strobe light mount The cartridge that is on it is an old thing I just used to take photo's of the arm for my Ebay ads. The real one should arrive in a week or so. I looked back at my old emails and found that the turntable the motor is from was a Sansui SR 525. Here are latest pix and the brochure from the donor TT. Judging by the description and spec's it should work pretty well.

Diytt3.jpg

Diytt5.JPG

SR525.jpg

SR525_1.jpg
 
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Look's AWESOME !!!
I agree with your wife on making a box to match for the transformer, expecially with those super sweet "dove tails". :yes:

Great job there rwortman. :thmbsp:
 
That is absolutely awsome! I love it!
There is a whole bunch of DD tables like that Sansui that could be ripped out of the original bases and put into something like what you've built - I'm thinking of the 80's Technics stuff especially. Very nice work! Any chance of pictures of the motor/platter and electronics when they are out of the plinth?
 
Rwortman can you give me a close-up pic of the arm. Maybe in another thread if you don't want to crap this one up. I have a Mayware Formula 4 but am missing the anti-skate parts. Does the Sonus use that thread, or did you add that yourself? I thought these arms used bb's in the top of the pivot cover?
 
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