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Prepping a Russco turntable..

Manmade Ruby bearings; but real Ruby crystal.
You Russco guys should go for a group buy. They're a whole whoppin' ~$8 for 10 of them on eBay. (depending on size)
 
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Got a wild hair today - and had a hair-brained idea to make my own idler. I bought this Russco without an idler wheel, knowing about the guy who makes nice ones from Delrin with a square section O-ring for traction. I actually have a couple of those Delrin wheels on order for this table - but meanwhile.. I wanted to see this thing work!

Since I have a little Harbor Freight Chinese lathe in the garage and happened to have some aluminum and of all things, some new Oilites of the right size, 3/8” ID, I made a hub that I glued into - a hockey puck! The puck is vulcanized rubber and while I think it’s probably a little hard, it seems to work - nicely! I measured, eyeballed - and guessed on the height and OD of it and made this 2.85” on the OD. It dropped right in and worked first time, right off..! It’s running right now to “break in” the somewhat tight Oilites (with lots of oil).

Thought I’d share a pic -

3C7D1714-7DE2-46DA-A32A-687FFD4B35B2.jpeg FE8821A6-E359-49F7-9EE9-81CD907E4757.jpeg

BTW, this is just temporary and I just made the part because I like to tinker.. Hadn’t played with the lathe for awhile.. :)

Oh - and I put an arm on it. Again, just a temporary but I’ll give it a test with this one to hear how it sounds..
This is probably the same type of arm it was equipped with when new, a Micro-Trak 303.

BC1C84CC-6D7B-4E5B-B6A4-E795CEA2FDC2.jpeg

Need to start planning for a plinth next.
 
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Very nice work! That armboard was drilled for that arm, unfortunately the arm that I pulled off wasn't in the greatest shape.
Good to see you honing your lathe skills as they are very handy to have. Now that you have an idler wheel to work with, make sure you adjust both the 33 and 45 idler stop screws visible in the shifter gate plate. Run them in till the idler wheel no longer drives the platter and start backing them out till you feel the platter being driven. Don't put to much tension on the wheel, just enough to smartly accelerate the platter and no more.
Did you mention what cart your running yet?

On Edit: There needs to be a clip on the end of the pin that the idler runs on with a fiber or teflon washer. The idler is liable to ride right up the pin if it's not perfectly square to the motor shaft and the inside of the platter.

BillWojo
 
BillWojo said:
Very nice work! That armboard was drilled for that arm, unfortunately the arm that I pulled off wasn't in the greatest shape.
Good to see you honing your lathe skills as they are very handy to have. Now that you have an idler wheel to work with, make sure you adjust both the 33 and 45 idler stop screws visible in the shifter gate plate. Run them in till the idler wheel no longer drives the platter and start backing them out till you feel the platter being driven. Don't put to much tension on the wheel, just enough to smartly accelerate the platter and no more.
Did you mention what cart your running yet?

On Edit: There needs to be a clip on the end of the pin that the idler runs on with a fiber or teflon washer. The idler is liable to ride right up the pin if it's not perfectly square to the motor shaft and the inside of the platter.

BillWojo
Click to expand...

Bill, I made the idler wheel hub just a bit too tall. The clip will almost fit on if I leave the teflon washer out. The wheel is staying in place on the stud for now but I won’t trust running it without the clip. Maybe I can thin the Oilite flanges a little so the clip fits.

The first cartridge I’ll try out on that arm will be one that was pretty much made for it - a Stanton 600. It’s a MI cart that’s supposed to be much like the Stanton 681 (and Pickering XV-15) in sound, with the right stylus. I have a few of the 600’s here to try out.
Once I have it a bit closer to dialed in, I may put on one of my Pickering XV-15s.

BTW - this table seems pretty quiet; was expecting more noise, especially with my hockey puck idler wheel.
 
Up ‘till today I had lubed moving parts on this with “gun oil”, either Hoppe’s or Outers brand; forgot which. Those seem to be around a 10 weight, sort of like sewing machine oil, I suppose. The platter bearing spec from Russco, circa 1982, was “standard 30 weight motor oil” which I know some people don’t like to use, apparently because of additives. While I do have some 30 weight around, I also had an open bottle of this full synthetic 5w/50. If it’s good enough for my 550HP Shelby, it should be good enough for a 33/45 rpm Russco..

BTW, Bill - @BillWojo it takes about 1-1/2 caps full of this to completely fill the bearing to overflow when the platter back in the bearing - both Oilites are in oil bath. It does take some time for the platter to settle. I just used regular Teflon thread tape to seal the grub screw.

B9DBA23B-DCBD-4473-B614-23940034C270.jpeg
 
MisterDK said:
Up ‘till today I had lubed moving parts on this with “gun oil”, either Hoppe’s or Outers brand; forgot which. Those seem to be around a 10 weight, sort of like sewing machine oil, I suppose. The platter bearing spec from Russco, circa 1982, was “standard 30 weight motor oil” which I know some people don’t like to use, apparently because of additives. While I do have some 30 weight around, I also had an open bottle of this full synthetic 5w/50. If it’s good enough for my 550HP Shelby, it should be good enough for a 33/45 rpm Russco..

BTW, Bill - @BillWojo it takes about 1-1/2 caps full of this to completely fill the bearing to overflow when the platter back in the bearing - both Oilites are in oil bath. It does take some time for the platter to settle. I just used regular Teflon thread tape to seal the grub screw.

View attachment 2658779
Click to expand...

Duane:

That 30wt recommendation is probably standard non detergent 30wt oil….Believe I’ve mentioned that these tables can be manipulated a bit by oil selection, for some reason my notes are lacking in relation to the topic.

As long as you check the oil every once in a while, don’t think it would be be a problem to use your synthetic motor oil, but I wouldn’t fill and forget:bye:
 
adnick said:
Duane:

That 30wt recommendation is probably standard non detergent 30wt oil….Believe I’ve mentioned that these tables can be manipulated a bit by oil selection, for some reason my notes are lacking in relation to the topic.

As long as you check the oil every once in a while, don’t think it would be be a problem to use your synthetic motor oil, but I wouldn’t fill and forget:bye:
Click to expand...

I’m sure I won’t be forgetting.. Clean and re-lube, every 4 months. :)
The manual does say to use non-detergent for the idler wheel Oilites and I think for the motor, too.
It just reads “any standard” for the platter bearing:

3ECCE869-1295-4ED3-8A71-50CF25B4D7D6.jpeg
 
As much as I’m happy to have successfully made my own idler wheel and can see the table running.. I just got an email from Abe, the gentleman who makes the Delrin idlers. Mine are ready to go so I should have ’em next week. Hoping that these will have slightly softer rubber than a hockey puck; I think I can hear the puck talking to me..

Abe’s idler wheels:

9C561263-031E-4552-8D2A-C394FE2A4D5C.jpeg
 
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adnick said:
Since you have it operating, I’d use one of Mike’s fine plinths from above and get an idea of baseline performance. That’s the best way to judge improvements….
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Yeah; I’m liking the chili cans. I wonder if Campbell’s tomato soup cans will resonate well.. ;)
 
Just a gut feeling,... but you'd probably be OK if you shook the cans first.

The cans are plinth, stage one, early design phase.
The inverted plinth is for when you get more advanced in your design, and take your design to plywood/particle board.
 
Actually, empty cans, upside down would probably be really good in the development stage. Any noise is more likely to be amplified by them. At this point you want to be able to identify sources.

BillWojo
 
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