Well, today I went to an older friend's house to help him with some stuff, and he has a lot of tools and lets me use them, so long as I do not make a mess. The TT was still in the car from the night before, and I hit upon the idea of taking it in and working on it, and making some MUCH needed mods to the plinth that it has, notably removing the Phono Pre and power supply for the Pre, and drilling holes for cables.
I helped him out for a couple hours (no, I do not get paid, I do this because I enjoy helping others), and then asked if he had any ideas as to what I could do to modify this. he knows quite a bit about woodworking, and has a lot of nuts and bolts and such laying around.
I put it on a workbench, and I took the platter off, and explained to him what everything was, and how it worked, and what my thoughts on it were, and what the thoughts of AK were, and all about plinths and vibration reduction methods, and my own ideas about what I could do to keep the costs down. I looked on the bottom, and there is the Japanese motor there, FYI. I could also feel a LOT of vibration through the motor mounts, and that concerned me a little…
He said that the box looked well made, and sturdy, and with a little help could be presentable. I thought that I might need to build one that is made with heavier materials, to keep the vibration out more, and make it look presentable. I might keep this box for a while as I am pretty broke.
I took the TT off the plinth, and then looked at the phono preamp, and decided that it needed to come out, so I unscrewed it and its power supply and set them aside. Later, I mounted them to a scrap piece of plywood, but that’s for another thread.
We discussed some options on mounting, and thought of an L shaped bracket from each side of the plinth could be attached to the motor mount, via other empty holes, and then attached to the plinth, and then I would isolate the TT from the plinth.
I was getting fed up with the rails on the side of the plinth, and so I unscrewed them. Then, I took the base and put it so I could drill into the back of it, and I got a ¾” spade bit (biggest I could find), and drilled out 4 holes in a cross shape, one by one, testing the mains plug (bigger than normal) each time I made another hole. I kinda rounded out the hole with a saw from a Swiss army knife….I might use my coping saw to make the job look neater when I get the chance. Now I could run the cords out of the back versus having the base SIT on the cords. The plinth amazingly is perfectly level, verified by 2 different levels, so I think that it might be salvageable and useable until I make a HUGE plinth. Maybe with a new plywood top, though. I want to have a new mounting surface free of old holes….
I then went looking inside a huge old set of drawers that had not been looked at in 30 years. I cam up with 3 huge washer lookin things, and those were the best that I could do, isolation wise, for the moment. I only had 2 screws, so we went to the Home Depot (I had $6 on me) and got some more screws and 4 nylon washers to put down between the screw head and the finish protect the finish. I could only find flathead screws, but that is ok. I put the screws initially with a drill, and I ended up stripping the 2 holes I tried, so I had to reposition the TT in the plinth, and put in 4 new holes. I put the 3 washers in-between the plinth and TT, 2 in the front and one at the back and put a level on the platter as I screwed down the TT, and I got it perfectly level everywhere.
That’s what I have gotten done today with that TT. More to come sometime when I get more free time.
Yea, that was really long.
