Divotdog
"I can fix it Grampa"
A couple of years back I restored a Thorens TD-150 in this thread, I used it for awhile in the garage system where it worked very well, I tried it in my main system but it didn’t quite reach the level of my modded TD-145, so back out to the garage it went.
I set some goals for the mod of the TD-150, I didn’t want any switches on the top plate, I want it to be very easy to mod it further, I wanted clean lines and a little bit bigger than the original 150, I also wanted to be able to change the tonearm board from the top of the table.
With this in mind I made some drawings to figure out just what size it was going to be.
The lower one is the actual size of the profile.
The table is essentially the same depth as the original and just a hair wider to accommodate different arms.
First up I fabricated a new top plate out of 5056 ¼ aluminum sans speed control and tonearm lift holes.
Next I machined a new plinth to the above specifications from laminated Finnish Birch plywood
I then machined a bottom plate from ½ inch Baltic Birch plywood, the corresponding angles machined into the bottom plate were Mrs. Divotdogs idea, she is darned handy to have around!
Next up were the top plate supports, again laminated Finnish Birch plywood topped with a layer of cork, I made the supports considerably larger than the stock support, I’m no engineer it just seems to me that this will keep resonance down, we will see.
Here is a test fit of the suspension and the top plate.
Another test fit with the platter installed and an armboard blank.
Some of these photos are old as we move on you will see some minor tweaks that I have made, this project has been ongoing for well over a year now, but now I’m getting excited so it is stating to pick up pace.
I set some goals for the mod of the TD-150, I didn’t want any switches on the top plate, I want it to be very easy to mod it further, I wanted clean lines and a little bit bigger than the original 150, I also wanted to be able to change the tonearm board from the top of the table.
With this in mind I made some drawings to figure out just what size it was going to be.
The lower one is the actual size of the profile.
The table is essentially the same depth as the original and just a hair wider to accommodate different arms.
First up I fabricated a new top plate out of 5056 ¼ aluminum sans speed control and tonearm lift holes.
Next I machined a new plinth to the above specifications from laminated Finnish Birch plywood
I then machined a bottom plate from ½ inch Baltic Birch plywood, the corresponding angles machined into the bottom plate were Mrs. Divotdogs idea, she is darned handy to have around!
Next up were the top plate supports, again laminated Finnish Birch plywood topped with a layer of cork, I made the supports considerably larger than the stock support, I’m no engineer it just seems to me that this will keep resonance down, we will see.
Here is a test fit of the suspension and the top plate.
Another test fit with the platter installed and an armboard blank.
Some of these photos are old as we move on you will see some minor tweaks that I have made, this project has been ongoing for well over a year now, but now I’m getting excited so it is stating to pick up pace.
