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Not Another turntable!!!! Empire 598

Nashou66

Nashou66

AK Subscriber
Subscriber
Saw this on craigslist about an hour and some from me. Not the best shape aesthetically but the seller says it functions well. 480 clams, how did I do?

Would love to get it looking nicer. the gold finish is worn off in spots, tone arm needs some cleaning up. But not sure what parts are brass under the anodizing and which aren't. I have read in the big Empire thread the tone arm parts can not be taken apart to get them anodized .But has any one done this to the plinth?

What other advice should I heed once I find time to bring this back to a better state looks wise than it is now?

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:banana::banana::banana:

Athanasios
 
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Before we get to the cosmetic shortcomings, how does it perform? Fix any/all mechanical or electrical issues before jumping on the Mary Kay stuff. I know nothing about replating, etc but a certain amount of patina tells the story of this survivor. If it were mine I would clean and polish the exterior metal with an auto polish containing a very mild abrasive. My preference is NuFinish but there’s other good ones as well.
 
Clean it up, do whatever maintenance it needs - new belt, lube, etc. - and enjoy the patina. They’re a decent sounding table and the arm works better than most think. That’s an original, early one like my 598; they sound pretty good and look cool, too. New cartridge sleds can be found on ebay from a couple sellers.

BTW- much of what looks like oxidation will clean off with Formula 409 or Fantastic.
 
I own an early 598 and agree with the previous two comments.
The finishes on the Empires aren't that great.
A very light touch is required.
Careful or you may well end up regretting what you've done.

Keep in mind that the TT is 50 years old.
 
I think who ever owned it before may have tried to hard to clean those two areas as I don't think its dirt its word down to the pot metal.
The previous owner had it serviced in 2018 in Rochester NY close to where I drove to get it.

He said it works fine, I still need to hook it up to my system . The light is replaced and it has a newer belt. The cover has a bit of flexing and comes out of its slide on metal
blocks that are part of the hinge system. That is it is spread out a bit allowing the metal slide guides not to hug the plates tightly. So care needs to be taken opening and closing it.

I was thinking of using Rub N Buff gold leaf product I read some one used here on AK, if you search there is a pic of their TT and it didn't look too bad.


Athanasios
 
Nashou66 said:
Saw this on craigslist about an hour and some from me. Not the best shape aesthetically but the seller says it functions well. 480 clams, how did I do?

Would love to get it looking nicer. the gold finish is worn off in spots, tone arm needs some cleaning up. But not sure what parts are brass under the anodizing and which aren't. I have read in the big Empire thread the tone arm parts can not be taken apart to get them anodized .But has any one done this to the plinth?

What other advice should I heed once I find time to bring this back to a better state looks wise than it is now?

51419017989_7c2fcd8c8f_h.jpg

51418516343_f80bc0a140_h.jpg

51418255806_d41151af3b_h.jpg


51418255801_cebc38b4ca_h.jpg
51418255791_5b4f00c5f5_h.jpg


:banana::banana::banana:

Athanasios
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Beautiful :trebon:
 
As long as the tone arm is in great shape I think you made out like a bandit. Every thing else can be fixed with time and tender loving care.
 
So far mid record it sounds nice. Some static and hum when the suspension bounces which I attribute to an iffy cable. The one that came with it
has electrical tape on it and I did not remove it to see what the issue was. but other wise speed sounds good to my ears, will check later again with phone app.


here it is playing on top of my Ar XA².

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Came with an AT cart of some sort, I think it was an AT VMN 150? not familiar with the AT nomenclature .

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So it works for the most part. A full restoration will happen this winter hopefully if time permits as I want to get my SOTA Sapphire in proper working order, another flaky tone arm cable
and might add the eclipse package to it. Well we will see . Also have to finish up some more Wyn Phono pre amps .

Athanasios
 
Don’t mess with the finish as others have said. You will regret it. Hook yourself up with a nice period correct Empire ZE/X 1000. You won’t regret it. One of my favorite cartridges on this table.
 
MRL_Audio said:
Don’t mess with the finish as others have said. You will regret it. Hook yourself up with a nice period correct Empire ZE/X 1000. You won’t regret it. One of my favorite cartridges on this table.
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Yeah I know what others have said. I may leave it as a "survivor" finish though some one tried to clean it and wore off the anodizing in the spots you can see in the pics. Its not dirt as its silver in those areas .

So I will first make sure it performs the best it can, then decide what to do aesthetics wise .

Athanasios
 
I don't think it's anodized as a anodized finish is much more rugged than what Empire used. I think it may be Alodine. Used to prevent corrosion and it's also conductive unlike anodizing. It's also a more fragile finish but gets tougher days after it is applied. It is usually used as a base on aluminum to paint over but in a lot of applications used as is. Very common in the aircraft industry.
It adds no thickness to the surface unlike anodizing.
I'm not sure that alodine can be re-applied but it might be worth investigating. It is usually clear to a gold color depending on type used and length of time immersed in the bath.

BillWojo
 
I don't know why but somewhere along the line I thought I heard that the gold finish was just a yellow toned clear lacquer...I seem to remember silver or gold finishes being offered...I may be wrong, but that stuck in my head somewhere since my first electronics experiences in the early sixties.
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@MRL_Audio, I don't own a Empire but I have seen them. I would think that a lacquer finish would be much more durable. That's why I threw out the Alodine process. It seems more in line with how fragile the finish is. I'm sure you have seen the finish on electronic assembly's used in aircraft and industrial components. Most folks mistakenly figure it's been anodized.
Andodizing requires special tanks and chemicals with high current power supplys and is a pain to get right, to many variables and is left to specialty houses. It's also a very effective insulator.
Alodine is a chromate solution that the parts are submersed in for a short time and rinsed off. Aside from the nasty chromate solution to deal with it's still a inhouse process in many precision sheet metal shops.
The chromate solution is highly toxic and any shops using it have to deal with the EPA.
After being dipped into the tanks the parts need to hang and be air dried without handling. Takes about 24 hours before the part can be touched or the finish will smear off.
Length of time in the tank will determine color. Clear Alodine finish is a quick dip, yellow or gold requires several minutes.
I'm just throwing out another very real possibility for how Empire finished their parts.

BillWojo
 
When you consider that the lacquers used back 50 - 60 years ago were pretty much nitrocellulose based and not acrylics, then the aging of such coatings causes many of the problems seen with the old Empire turntables today. The stuff was thin and gets very brittle and allows moisture from the air to penetrate helping to discolor the aluminum and the coating to flake off. It was not an automotive grade coating.

I restored a 598 for a fellow a couple of years ago and it did look like it was just a gold tinted clear coat on top of the aluminum substrate.

I've seen a lot of alodining in the past 50 years and the Empires don't look like that...but, I am always ready to be proven wrong.
 
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RickB said:
I've seen a lot of alodining in the past 50 years and the Empires don't look like that...but, I am always ready to be proven wrong.
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As am I. LOL I was just throwing another possibility out there. It would be interesting to look at the coating flakes and see if the color is impregnated into the coating or just on the bottom surface. That might give us more clues.
I'm surprised that there isn't someone that was around when these were built to answer the question and settle it once and for ever. People have been asking about the finish on these units for many years.
Has anyone used lacquer thinner to clean a corroded plinth that still has some original finish on it? If the gold wipes right off that would be a big clue.
Quick google search indicates they made the Troubadour up till about 1980. That was only 41 years ago. Kind of surprised that not a single employee is into audio and hasn't joined into at least one of the forums. It would be really interesting to pick their brain.

BillWojo
 
Here is a very good link/history of Empire.
https://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/some-empire-turntable-history.278075/
Seems the chassis and other parts are not aluminum so that throws out my theory of alodine finishing. It's pot metal. That explains why they corrode so badly.
So a tinted lacquer is the most likely finish.
Corrosion on pot metal is not easily repairable and I'm not sure it ever really stops after it starts.
An automotive restoration site may give a lot more information on how to deal with it as many of the older car parts were pot metal.
A shame as they are really beautiful TT.

BillWojo
 
BillWojo said:
Here is a very good link/history of Empire.
https://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/some-empire-turntable-history.278075/
Seems the chassis and other parts are not aluminum so that throws out my theory of alodine finishing. It's pot metal. That explains why they corrode so badly.
So a tinted lacquer is the most likely finish.
Corrosion on pot metal is not easily repairable and I'm not sure it ever really stops after it starts.
An automotive restoration site may give a lot more information on how to deal with it as many of the older car parts were pot metal.
A shame as they are really beautiful TT.

BillWojo
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I've got some NIB tuning capacitor gearbox drives from old National HRO receivers that are made of pot metal, these are literally crumbling into chunks...of course these things were made back in the 30's and 40's, but metal shouldn't just disintegrate.
 
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