my diy project

[moimeme_81]

Hi,

I'm new to this forum (from which I found some really useful info while rebuilding my old transcriptor skeleton) and I've been cut in the loop of the diy world because of a pair of speaker and the transcriptor I rebuilt. So here it goes, I found a sony ps-T1 with a broken tonearm and I know it's not worth it to fix it since quality/price will never get even close to the transcriptor I own, so I thought why not salvage the pieces of it and build a new one. so basically I think about keeping the motor control, strobe light and maybe the plater (if I throw the platter, the strobe is going too)... but does anyone know if the motor and motor control were anywhere near good, I mean are they know to vary in speed a lot or not?

thanks
chris

[JosM]

Hi Chris,

Is the Sony turntable a directdrive turntable?

BR,

Jos

[duficity]

The sony is nothing special, just regular plastic economy stuff.

[Alec124c41]

It might still be fun to put it in a new base.

Cheers,
Alec

[moimeme_81]

hi

thanks for your answer

in the mean time, I decided to throw out the motor after a couple of tests, it's not strong enough to spin the plate at 45rpm... so I'll buy a new motor and build a belt drive table instead using some switches, pot and other stuff salvaged in the sony (basically a brand new table from scratch...). but I was wondering about the wood I should use to build hard, soft, light, heavy... what makes a choice of wood?

thanks
chris

[JosM]

Hi Chris,

Wood is not very expensive and easy to handle and work with it. You can paint it in any colour or just oil it, etc. See my pictures in DIY turntable.

regards

Jos

[moimeme_81]

yeah but what kind, I know balsa is not a good choice but should I go for maple or birch as in hard and heavy or soft and light. the reason why I go with wood is not that it's cheap or easy to work with since metal is not difficult for me, I just like the feeling of it and the sound quality that you get from wood is just amazing but I want to pin-point the qualities of the wood used in a TT (what do you think about wenge)

thanks
chris

[JosM]

Hi Chris,

I have no experience with wenge. Wenge has a nice look. The most important thing is that the wood has also a damping function. The damping factor of wood is better than spikes. I have used two pieces of plywood with softboard like a sandwich. totaal thickness about 6 centimeter.

[moimeme_81]

hi,

I just made some research adding the bits (quite big bits actually) of information you gave me and I found out that woodsound audio is using wenge and that guitars builder tend to not use it because of it's damping factor so I guess it's not a bad choice, I'll still look it up but I might use wenge for the plinth and bamboo for the tonearm.

thanks for the info
chris

p.s.: if you use wenge someday one of the info I found is to be careful because the dust is toxic and cause very strong irritation problem to the skin

[JosM]

I made myself also a tonearm. The arm is made of the top of a fishing rod purchased by a local fishequipment dealer. The rod is made of carbon dia from 8 to 10 mm. The headshell is made of a alu rod of 8 mm. The rod is on one side flattened. See the pictures of it.
Regards

Jos

[kelvinMunson]

Hi Jos,

Have you fitted your tonearm to a turntable and, if so, how does it perform ?

I guess you've used a tube rather than a solid rod ? Don't see any cable in your pic though ?

[JosM]

At this moment I have finished the turntable including the tonearm. It performs great! The tonearm is made of a tube. I use litze wire from an old coil of a medium wave radio. I use also aluminium folie in the tube as a earthscreen.

[kelvinMunson]

Impressed !

[JosM]

Thanks!