-edible zone-
No.6435 Overview
Starting Line
Arrival Deconstruction
Beneath Decks First
Night's Spin
Listening
to Plinths Motor
System: The Tonearm
Tweaks Articles
Bookshelf
Transit
*
FIRST LOOK
When this arrived, something about the
accumulated neglect wasn't very impressive, though nothing was damaged
in transit. No doubt about it, this was definitely a fifty year old
chunk of machinery, and looked it. But easily the most brickhouse
construction I’ve ever seen, and from the innocent era; that is, before
broad beams of acrylic and thick plates of aluminum were added to convey
“intent” or “seriousness” or something….. And even before Garrard itself
found the need to please the missus by going to the more
parlor-appropriate ivory enamel a few years later.
There was a
lot here that was redolent of all things Fifties Brittania, leading you
down the path of Ealing Studio films, Austin-Healey motorcars, Cunard
liners, Kingsley Amis novels, and the Cold War.
As opposed to the
401, which tended more toward velvet-collared suitcoats, Jaguars, and
wining-and-dining Julie Christie ... Maybe with one of those George
Martin produced recordings.
As per the Garrard manual, a
beautifully illustrated little book, it took both gentle / insistent
lifting from both edges of the platter and then a sharp knock from a
woodblock on the spindle from above to remove the platter. This is an
operation that requires two sets of hands. ( Once clean you can apply a
thin coat of paraffin wax to the lower spindle to allow a smoother
de-plattering procedure in future… )
This is probably the right
time for the short warnings list….. Don’t score, scratch, or handle with
coarse tools---- any of the motor or spindle bearing parts. Don’t try
this if you’ve got well-reasoned doubts about wrecking one of the last
of an endangered species of handmade analog transcription transports.
When it’s not going, don’t force. If you haven’t got the exact tool
that’s necessary don’t improvise, get the right one. Fixed-jaw wrenches,
please, not some raggedy pliers to gnarl things up. Relax into this
whole thing… it can’t be rocket science if I was able to do it.
Oh, and what’s coming is the turntable equivalent of an oil change, so
be prepared with lots of cleanup materials.
With the platter
off, I was pleased to find that the motor suspension is functional, the
motor itself seems very smooth and true when twirled by hand, and
exhibits not a hint of side-to-side play…. I think I may just get away
with some discreet injection-oiling of the upper and lower motor
bearings and therefore won’t have to disassemble the drive-pulley, the
eddy current brake, the shockmount, or motor. That will be the initial
approach, anyway. My idler condition was fair, but round, and though it
will eventually be a candidate for replacement it’s going to make it
thru the trial runs.
The grease-bearing assembly itself is
thick-as-a-brick with half a century’s accumulated lube samplings. This
is similar to the kind of automobile maintenance where you may often
conscientiously add a little oil, so you can tell yourself you really
never get to the point of needing an oil change. On a quick look into
the greasejet, turning the spindle around by hand, I can see there’s
some basic black petro-base grease, some white-lithium grease, and
sometime back there was someone who actually thought they’d mix in a
little oil as well. This would be the big hurdle…. The spindle in this
condition turned like it was stuck in molasses, and, though it was too
early to say for certain, even as such the spindle bearing was showing
no side-to-side play or any eccentricity whatsoever. This was the first
and central test for this 301 project, and so far, so good.
Much
of the initial work --- for me, across ten days or so—has to do with
acquainting yourself with the mechanism and managing to free-up all the
levers and linkages without forcing or grinding anything. I used lots of
strips of clean white cloth and various popsicle sticks, chopsticks and
toothpicks. Nothing should leave fibers behind, and nothing should be
able to scratch. Lighter-fluid / naptha makes a good solvent for old
hardened-up lube points, and for a start I went with the sewing-machine
oil to get things moving again.
It was a good week of this
tentative flexing till even getting close to plugging in. The motor is
powerful and thus it’s important that nothing will bind. Site along the
edge of the eddy-current brake and hand rotate the motor-shaft to check.
Shift the pitch control to both extremes and check all along the way.
Everything needs to line up.
But before plug in it makes sense to do the spindle bearing.
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