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Garrard Lab 80 turntable questions

dyche01

dyche01

"Buy high. Sell low"
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A few months ago I scored a nice Garrard Lab 80 turntable. Since then, it has been sitting in the basement gathering dust. I figure it is time to get it back into fighting trim and who better to ask for advice than the collective, hive mind of Audiokarma.

My first question is about the feet. My plinth doesn't have any but there are small holes in the corners. From the little bit of online searching I have done, it appears that the feet were cast metal (lead?) with little shafts that slid into the holes in the plinth. They look something like this:

garrard-lab-80-plinth-riser-feet-rare-237132efcab9759dadefaa8c267ffa59.jpg

Rather than trying to find vintage Garrard feet, I am thinking about 3-D printing a set of replacements. Does anybody here know the dimensions of the originals?
 
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Yes, those are the original feet. Seems it wouldn't be difficult to make them, turned on a metal lathe, a combination screw and wood foot, or other material.
Here's a pic of how they look in place>

Lab80_2_zps759a1495.jpg
 
Hi,

No need to complicate something very simple. There are
loads of feet online, just find something that is suitable.

rgds, sreten.
 
sreten said:
Hi,

No need to complicate something very simple. There are
loads of feet online, just find something that is suitable.

rgds, sreten.
Click to expand...

Oh that would be MUCH too simple. My motto is: why buy a wheel when you can reinvent one?
 
I have a Garrard Lab 80 and measured the feet. Total length is 24 mm including the skinny top post. The skinny top post is 14 mm. The width of the bottom of the foot is 9 mm.
 
I have been slowly working through the Garrard Lab 80, getting it up and running.

First, I lubed the motor, idler wheel, and turntable bearings with compressor oil. The speed is now dead on the money at both 33 1/3 and 45 RPM. The idler wheel and turntable bearing still make a faint noise when turning. I had the same problem with the Dual 1009 and solved it by using a little PTFE-containing oil on the idler wheel bearing and a bit of white lithium grease on the thrust bearing under the turntable. Any other suggestions?

I also fixed some loose connections in the tone arm wiring and replaced the junky cartridge with an old (not NOS, just old) Pickering V15/AT1. With the repaired tone arm the sound from this table beat the pants off the old Dual (sporting an indifferent Shure cartridge) and also edged out my Marantz 6200 in direct A/B comparison (using an integrated amp with two turntable inputs). The result convinced me to spring for a higher quality cartridge for the Marantz, just to achieve parity with the older Garrard.

The manual functions of the turntable are all working now, and the oil-damped needle drop is one of my favorite features. Unfortunately the automatic functions are all still kaput.
 
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dyche01 said:
Unfortunately the automatic functions are all still kaput.
Click to expand...

Hi,

Assuming all the bits are there it's simply a 3D puzzle.

You just work out how its supposed to work and why
it doesn't. Generally they don't work when for some
reason the shutdown / start up configuration has
not been reached, i.e. its stuck, and it needs to
be be reset to the final / initial configuration.
Generally in the stuck state the final sequence
is never invoked, and manually driving it through
the final sequence in the simplest case fixes it.

I've never failed to reset a stuck configuration.

rgds, sreten.
 
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Here is a photo of the underside of my Lab 80. I am still working on getting the automatic functions to work but I am not sure what is wrong. It only took me an hour or so to fix my Dual 1009 but this guy is taking me much longer.

Does anything look seriously amiss to the Garrard gurus in the crowd?

Garrard_bottom_sm.jpg
 
It's almost always due to hardened grease which is preventing parts from pivoting properly. There are also components of the automatic mechanism under the platter that will need attention (trip pawl in the cycling gear for example). The best thing to do is a complete teardown, degrease and regrease but short of that you may be able to loosen up hardened grease and stuck parts with careful application of gum cutter at all pivot points followed by compressed air and a proper relubrication. Be very careful not to get any grease or oil on the drive surfaces in the process, use alcohol to clean any drive surfaces that have been contaminated with grease or oil.

That model is a real looker, always admired that one!
 
There is another post here called "My Lab 80 Obession" that is a number of pages long. Tells you just about everything you want to (and don't want to) know. Lab 80's can be buggers to get right. But they are kind of addicting. I have one and don't think I would ever get rid of it.
 
audiojones said:
It's almost always due to hardened grease which is preventing parts from pivoting properly. There are also components of the automatic mechanism under the platter that will need attention (trip pawl in the cycling gear for example). The best thing to do is a complete teardown, degrease and regrease but short of that you may be able to loosen up hardened grease and stuck parts with careful application of gum cutter at all pivot points followed by compressed air and a proper relubrication. Be very careful not to get any grease or oil on the drive surfaces in the process, use alcohol to clean any drive surfaces that have been contaminated with grease or oil.

That model is a real looker, always admired that one!
Click to expand...

Thanks! I already de- and re-greased everything that I could reach without doing a complete teardown (including the bits under the platter). I guess there is no getting around doing some disassembly.
 
ggregg said:
There is another post here called "My Lab 80 Obession" that is a number of pages long. Tells you just about everything you want to (and don't want to) know. Lab 80's can be buggers to get right. But they are kind of addicting. I have one and don't think I would ever get rid of it.
Click to expand...

I should look through that thread.

And I now understand the obsession. With the V15/AT-1 cartridge this turntable sounds better than I would have imagined. And it is so pretty!
 
This family was the last real Garrard design the old way before Plessey cheapened the Garrard line. This and the 401, are the last Garrards focused on top quality.
 
How come the Lab 80 doesnt get as near much love as the 301 and 401 if it's similar to them? Is it because it is automatic and annoying? Or can that be an good thing kind of a sleeper garrard with top quality like 301/401 at fraction of the cost?

KentTeffeteller said:
This family was the last real Garrard design the old way before Plessey cheapened the Garrard line. This and the 401, are the last Garrards focused on top quality.
Click to expand...
 
Paul89 said:
How come the Lab 80 doesnt get as near much love as the 301 and 401 if it's similar to them? Is it because it is automatic and annoying? Or can that be an good thing kind of a sleeper garrard with top quality like 301/401 at fraction of the cost?
Click to expand...

It's automatic and not quite 301 or 401 level.
 
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