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Commonwealth's are what I normally work on but the principles are the same.I have just decided to get back into vinyl playback and wanted to try an idler table as I already have an SP-10MKII, SP15, Oracle Delphi MKIII and a few other Japanese DD TTs, an idler just seemed like the next thing to have in my system. I have been reading about them for the last few weeks and started calling a few of my audio friends and one of them had a pair of Russcos in his collection that he was ready to part with. It's ironic that in my ham radio days I used to go around stations in the northwest US and BC looking for old transmitters and ended up hauling home a lot of the stuff the engineers had stored in the transmitter buildings, consoles, R-R decks and TTs. It's entirely possible I donated these to the radio museum I belonged to in the 90's, and here they are back at my house. Too funny.
They are Russco Studio Pro model B, in near mint condition and have been well maintained over the years, consecutive serial numbers which is very cool, and still the original platters with matching serial numbers. They came with Micro Trak 303 arms on a minimal base and some odd wiring underneath. My plan is to separate them and build individual plinths, arm boards and maybe even mount an arm separate from the chassis. From what I can see there is a lot of room for improvement from the original commercial design, chassis damping, motor suspension etc. This will be a bit of a project as I don't currently have my woodworking shop setup but will this spring.
I'll be looking for some guidance from those of you who have upgraded these types of tables, damping ideas, suspension upgrades, plinth design etc.
This post is just to get the thread rolling, more pictures will follow as I start the dismantling.
Look forward to hearing about things I can do to upgrade these for home use.
Cheers
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Approach each job individually.
The idler wheel, many after market ones are not very good as they are the wrong rubber ir thry are not well balanced.
If yours is hard, it can be machined in a lathe to get the outer hard glaze off. Don't be tempted to sand it when spinning, do it properly or it will end up not round.
Check everything, is there plastic or felt washers were thry are supposed to be?
What oil is it supposed to have? Don't use any oil you have in your garage, your spindle bearing needs a specific weight, use only that and clean everything first.
The motor has bearings too which are likely bronze. Thry will be glazed. You need to remove them and boil them in the correct oil, they will fizz when the glaze melts and new oil is going into them.
You can get the motor rotor balanced too and the platter if you want to go the extra step. There is more but this is the basics of a great end result.
Chris