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Garrard 401 plinth project

jonnyglass

jonnyglass

New Member
Hello,
I am starting on a plinth for a Garrard 401, the top of the plinth is 2" thick soapstone which is being waterjet cut to accommodate the 401. I'm sure there will be questions along the way and looking forward to sharing progress as things go forward.

First thing I'm realizing is that the mounting studs aren't long enough to go completely through the 2" stone. I will be laminating the top of the plinth to another 2" of plywood, ideally the mounting studs would extend through some of the plywood. My preference for this would be to find some sort of threaded tube to screw into the mounting stud and then I'd use another bolt on the opposite end to tighten against the plinth. Does anyone know the screw size and thread pitch for these mounting studs? Any other suggestions, it does not appear the mounting studs are easily removed/replaced?

Thanks!
 
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Excellent avatar (if that is what the picture above your name is called). There was a record store in Portland Or (I think that is where it was) that had a wall with all the take offs of the Whipped Cream and Other Delights cover. Yours was one of the better ones.
My solution would be to bolt the table to the first layer of plywood and have acess holes through the other pieces of plywood and the soapstone. I don't beleive bolting the whole stack together will be as effective as gluing, and I assume you are gluing plywood together to get the 2 inch thickness anyway.
 
Nat said:
Excellent avatar (if that is what the picture above your name is called). There was a record store in Portland Or (I think that is where it was) that had a wall with all the take offs of the Whipped Cream and Other Delights cover. Yours was one of the better ones.
My solution would be to bolt the table to the first layer of plywood and have acess holes through the other pieces of plywood and the soapstone. I don't beleive bolting the whole stack together will be as effective as gluing, and I assume you are gluing plywood together to get the 2 inch thickness anyway.
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The top of the plinth will be a 2" thick piece of soapstone, the plywood will be layered underneath the stone with maybe a 1/2 reveal between the stone and wood. The studs aren't long enough to go through the 2" of stone.
 
Misunderstood. based on your saying that the top of the plinth would be laminated to 2 inches of plywood. It did seem odd to me that you would put the soapstone on the bottom, but everyone has their own ideas, so I figured you had a plan.
I believe soapstone is fairly easily worked, and if they are water jetting the cutout, I bet they could drill and countersink the bolt holes with no problem.
 
Being soapstone is soft drill the mounting stud holes and epoxy some treaded inserts
and your set.
If your using removable armboards do the same.


Unknown-1.jpeg
 
totem said:
Being soapstone is soft drill the mounting stud holes and epoxy some treaded inserts
and your set.
If your using removable armboards do the same.


View attachment 1990537
Click to expand...
As far as I can tell, the studs are fixed and the table needs to be clamped down by screwing in from underneath. I just got back to the hardward store, and it seems like the size is close to 6mm coarse and the nut from the table will fit (loosely) on a 6mm bolt, however a 6mm nut is too small to fit on the turntable's studs. As a plan "B", if I can't figure out the hardware to extend the studs, I can countersink the holes on the bottom of the plinth, but I would rather do as little working of the stone as possible. Plus I really like the idea of the studs extending down through the first layer of ply. I did DIY our kitchen countertops with soapstone so very familiar with working the material; it can be cut, sanded, drilled using regular woodworking tools (dry).

(Edited) Just found online they are size 0BA whatever that means, now to try to source hardware to match.
 
I would expect a Garrard to use imperial studs, after all it is English made, no? Maybe the female half of a barrel* bolt will work.
* AKA Sex Bolt and Chicago Bolt.
 
elcoholic said:
I would expect a Garrard to use imperial studs, after all it is English made, no? Maybe the female half of a barrel* bolt will work.
* AKA Sex Bolt and Chicago Bolt.
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Definitely 0BA - the thread pitch is 1mm just like the 6mm metric bolt, but the screw is just slightly larger. I found a site called (amusingly enough) "britishfasteners.com", gonna order some hardware from them as well as a tap so that I can hopefully use to make a standard 6mm coupling fit.

(Edit) - Yeah a barrel bolt would be perfect, let me see I can find in 6mm, then can use the tap to make it fit. Thanks - I didn't know the name for those things.
 
You could buy some 0BA threaded rod and use a couple of matching nuts secured together [tacked or JB ]
to make a female threaded coupler and extension. And then you wouldn't need to tap anything.

The rod and nuts were from 1 of the UK sites similar to the one you noted.
 
Thought I'd share the shop drawing from the waterjet company for the plinth, everything is lining-up and I'm very excited... The back arm will be an SME 3009, the right arm will be a Fairchild 281A. The only change from this to the final is making the four bolt holes at .5" to accommodate the couplers lengthening the mounting studs. Hoping to pick up the stone this coming week and will post some shots as things go forward.
 

Attachments

The above shop drawing should be put in a sticky or added somewhere for future use.

Nice of you to post it for public access.
 
Got the stone back today, and it's looking good, damn thing fits! Long way yet to go but this is real progress.
 

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Very impressive. I've long thought about a DIY soapstone plinth as I've heard it can be machined with carbide wood working tooling, not that I've tried. I'm really curious about costs for this work.
 
For what it's worth, M6 threaded rod will work to replace the studs. May not be the exact pitch as BSF but it threads in all the way without any force and will hold tightly enough for this purpose. Of course it's not interchangeable with BSF threading in certain application where tension is critical but that's not the case in securing a 401 chassis to a plinth. I've done this so it's not a theoretical suggestion.
 
elcoholic said:
Very impressive. I've long thought about a DIY soapstone plinth as I've heard it can be machined with carbide wood working tooling, not that I've tried. I'm really curious about costs for this work.
Click to expand...
So far the costs have been fairly reasonable (in my opinion), around $250 for the soapstone 2" x 24" x 18" and $180 for the CAD/layout work along with the waterjet cut. Doing another would be cheaper (~$120) since they could use the existing file. So I'm around $450 getting to this point. I have about $50 into baltic-birch plywood for the sub-base, and then all the miscellaneous screws, etc... If folks are interested I could do a full accounting at the end.
 
hirscwi said:
For what it's worth, M6 threaded rod will work to replace the studs. May not be the exact pitch as BSF but it threads in all the way without any force and will hold tightly enough for this purpose. Of course it's not interchangeable with BSF threading in certain application where tension is critical but that's not the case in securing a 401 chassis to a plinth. I've done this so it's not a theoretical suggestion.
Click to expand...
I already have the 1/4" BSF hardware on hand, but one thing I am curious about is how the studs are mounted, can they be removed (unscrewed) without disassembling anything, just with a pair of vise-grips I suppose? If so, how deep is the threaded part that they screw into?
 
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