Greetings All,
So, after much reading and envious inferiority, I decided to buy an AR turntable and see what I could do to clean it up a bit. This is what I had to work with:
My first thing to do was completely disassemble it and figure out what could stay and what could go. Decided I could definitely reuse the plinth, and could refinish the top plate. Plinth was sanded down, oiled with BLO. After drying, applied about 20 coats of lacquer, block sanding after every fourth coat, then the final coat was sanded to 3000Gr, then buffed and polished. The Top plate was the same, except did require some minor filling from course sanding and the irregularities of the screw-attachments from the underside. They both came out with some nice depth and color:
I took the tonearm apart and removed the existing wiring. I ordered some 99.99% silver litz wires, destroyed a Technics tonearm, and converted it over to a standard headshell with new tonearm wires. Each piece was cleaned and polished, did some of the basic "improvements" to the remaining tonearm, and am still awaiting arrival of the Sapphire thrust and ball bearing for it. Polished up the outer platter a bit and was surprised how well it cleaned up.
For the time being, I am reusing the original springs and have not damped the drive pulley yet. Will install new output cables and power cable, install new sapphire thrust bearing for the platter, and get the original motor back in this weekend. Guess I am just excited to get to this point.
Obviously nothing new, and looks a lot like everyone elses. Would welcome any and all guidance, criticism, and whatnot. Thanks for looking.
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