How to clean LP-12 platter

[Mike Cole]

Damn, I have not been here in a while and now I drop by and they have a Linn forum. Cool.

Anybody have any suggestions for cleaning the side of the platter? I have heard that you are not supposed to use any solvents since it supposedly has some kind of coating on the platter that needs to be there for some reason. Another LP12 myth? At any rate mine is discolored and it looks crappy when it is spinning. I have tried using a soft cloth, but that does not do anything. What do other people do? Or do you just live with it?

Mike

[pbda]

With respect to the platter, the Linn set-up manual advises:

"Silicone polishes are suitable for the platter rim and stainless steel top plate. NEVER use an abrasive polish on the platter, as it is lacquered, and this could destroy the finish. The platter can be expected to darken some with age, since the alloy is slightly photo-sensitive."

[Mike Cole]

Guess I should have read the manual better. Any idea what product is a silicone polish?

[pbda]

No idea, but try e-mailing Linn. I have found them to be very friendly, helpful and quick to respond.

[RickB]

Yeah,

That lacquer finish always seems to deteriorate, it makes the polished aluminum base of the rim look like cheap grey paint...but, if you can do manual labor you can make it look great again....

I did Linn TT setups and repairs in the waning days of the Linn shop here and cleaned up several outer platters by removing the ugly coating and polishing the rim...

I would take one of two methods to clean the platter depending on how ugly the rim was...sometimes I would take lacquer thinner on a paper towel, squeezed out until almost dry, and carefully remove just the lacquer on the rim, other times I would just start with the W-O-D sandpaper...which may actually be easier for some since you don't have to worry about corrupting the upper surface lacquer finish with stray thinner...

IF there were no scratches, or only minimal ones, I would start polishing the rim with 1000 grit wet or dry used wet with a rubber sanding pad to try and keep the rim very flat....if there were scratches I may start with 400, then to 600, 800, and then finally 1000 wet or dry....remember, all polishing is progressive scratch reduction....the finer a grit, the finer the scratch, and skipping a grit sometimes makes more work than just going ahead and doing the intermediate step...man, have I ever learned this time after time after time......geeze, you'd think I'd learn!!!

After the 1000, comes 1200, 1500, and 2000 grit W-O-D....then Nevr-Dul polish (which is a wadding impregnated with a polishing agent and finer than 2000 grit but coarser then the next step), and finally Simichrome or Maas metal polish followed by a coat of car wax, (without cleaners, please!) buffed out with a microfiber cloth...

I did mine first to refine this process before doing anyone else's, btw....but, after bunches of motorcycles with aluminum parts on their engines that I polished to mirror brightness and the dash pots on the SU carburettors on my MG's, Triumphs, and Healeys, I had a lot of experience with metal polishing at home!

Be careful not to mess with the lacquer coating on the top of the platter, just do the rim. I never tried to make this area look any better since it's usually covered by the felt mat...

I do not know if this affects the damping of the platter or not, I didn't notice anything, but if you are OCD and good with a spray can, you could re-lacquer the edge with clear lacquer bought at an automotive parts supply house....I find these lacquers much better than the usual Rustoleum or Krylon clear lacquers, and they have a spray nozzle that sprays in a fan pattern, not just a blob...

The rubber sanding pad, which is a small flat rectangle about 1/4" thick, and the wet or dry in these fine grits, are also available at automotive parts stores...along with Nevr-Dul and other forms of metal polishing creams....

This is a bit of work, but, if done properly, makes the rim look fantastic! I never lacquered a rim, mine has been polished for at least this century and hasn't tarnished much, if any, and can always be quickly touched up with a bit of Simichrome or Maas if needed...

Now, the upper stainless panel?

That can be effectively cleaned and polished with a light use of green Scotch-Brite, the graining is an almost exact match, and taking the plate off and polishing it makes it look like new, platter scrapes, etc., all can be polished out and returns the unit to looking like new...I love stainless...just make sure to polish in very straight lines that follow the original graining and you'll really make a big improvement in the plate....

As always, YMMV

Rick

[Mike Cole]

Holy moly, Rick, that is some workout routine you've developed. I am not sure I want to go that far, but as you described it, I could picture the final result in my mind and it was flat out beautiful. Maybe one of these days I may get up enough motivation to actually do it. BTW, how did you get the top plate off. It looked like it was pressure fitted into the wood.

Mike

[RickB]

Holy moly, Rick, that is some workout routine you've developed. I am not sure I want to go that far, but as you described it, I could picture the final result in my mind and it was flat out beautiful. Maybe one of these days I may get up enough motivation to actually do it. BTW, how did you get the top plate off. It looked like it was pressure fitted into the wood.

Mike

Well, it is a lot of work, but if you do it right the first time then you don't have to worry about it so much later...right now the Sondek is offline while I play with a Micro Seki BL-51 that a guy gave me because it didn't run...a couple of caps in the power supply and it runs like a champ....it sat in a closet for a year until a fellow AK'er turned me on to an estate sale and I picked up a brand new in the box Audio Technica ATP-12 tonearm and a whole load of cartridges...and a few other turntables....and thousands of styli....and all kinds of other junque....headshells, cheap-o phono preamps NIB....gonna put a lot of that stuff on ebay this fall...

The truth about polishing is that it's one of the most tedious jobs around...I used to restore and take care of cars for a transportation museum....back in 1979 I spent two 8 hour days polishing a Mercer Raceabout's nickel plated radiator shell by hand with Simichrome....I just took my time and visulaized what it would look like when I finally finished...

The top plate comes off when you disassemble the turntable...it's actually held in place under a bit of tension, but as I learned with cars, motorcycles, old radio gear, etc., sometimes things have got to be really disassembled to get all the parts looking cherry again...anything less looks like a hack job...you really have to take the turntable down to it's most intimate bits, though, to get to that point...just touching up the scratched areas on the plate with the Scotchbrite is sometimes all that is needed...

I traded a used Axis with Basic Plus arm a fistfull of dollars to a guy I met on Usenet looking to go down a step from his LP-12/Valhalla/IttokLVII.

After I learned how to repair, tune, and setup the thing, I took mine apart and polished the platter and top plate, and reoiled the Aformosia plinth...made it look like new...rebuilt the Valhalla....did the spring upgrades, etc...but, it still has one of the older bearings...vintage mid-eighties....

Future things to do for the Sondek are to make a plinth and armboard from Purpleheart....got a bunch of that laying around just waiting for me to set my woodshop up once again...

Have fun

[zoeinterloper]

RickB, Thanks for the platter restoration tutorial. That is a mother load of good advise. I just got my beloved deck (circa 1982) back from the dealer with upgrades and hadn't noticed for several weeks that the platter side lacquer has a big scratch on it and in fact, it's not even my outer platter. How I know this is that when I have looked over others over the years they all look mottled and mine is clear silver aluminium with not a mark on it. It always amazed me how good mine was in comparison. Well needless to say I'm going to have a hard time with dealer over this one. Maybe the shorter path is just to buck up and refinish it myself.

Happy Listening! :beatnik:

[RickB]

You ought to get back in touch with that dealer, I would wonder about one that mixed up parts from one turntable to another...that just ain't right!

You didn't have a bearing upgrade done, did you?

[zoeinterloper]

Yes, had the Cirkus done back in '94(?) For me it was a more profound improvement than that of the Lingo. What I thought was a very quiet and detailed table pre-Cirkus became 50%+ quieter in surface noise and the detail just came out to play in a whole new way. Low level stuff that I had (assumed) was not properly resolved in the recording/mastering/pressing process came to life very vividly on a majority of my vinyl collection. I could not have been more satisfied. Later came the Lingo and it too was a substantial improvement but not nearly the cost/quality of the Cirkus.

Happy Listening! :beatnik: