To Float, Or Not To Float?

[Julie Moriarty]

This is a base for a turntable (upside down). It evolved.

Yesterday I was mortising the feet to accept the corners of the maple platform the turntable will sit in. I've been keeping some fairly tight tolerances and planned to glue everything together, including the platform to the side panels. That's how the original is made. But then it dawned on me, the platform and side panels on the original are manufactured wood products, not real wood. And I wondered if I need to make the platform float inside the dadoes on the panels?





In the turntable world, some refer to the turntable base as a plinth. That means it should be a solid base and probably something that would help absorb vibration. If I floated the platform, I'm thinking I would have to do something to make sure there was no chance for added vibration.

What would you do?

[Jamie Buxton]

I'd say you're okay gluing it in. The hygroscopic expansion happens across the grain, and you have only a couple of inches of it. (If you had made the platform from one big sheet of wood, and cut a big hole in the middle, you'd have much more trouble. But you didn't.)

[Kent A Bathurst]

OOooops...........wrong thread.

I thought this was another one about your boats. I was gonna vote "float".

Never mind.

[Peter Quinn]

MO, doesn't need to float, no wood movement issues. Woods not growing in length, and that's the only direction you are holding captive, not enough movement Ross the width of the dado to matter. I just made 25 products for a client, different product but exactly the same construction situation. I glued them all in, did a prototype that way about 4 months ago, no issues.

[Julie Moriarty]

Thanks guys. No float it is. Except with boats.

[Chris Padilla]

Turntable?

[Jim Becker]

Turntable?

You may be too young to remember those, Chris...

[Mike Henderson]

Reminds me of a story:

A friend's young daughter was in that phase where she was repeating everything multiple times. Her mom, frustrated, finally said, "Will you stop that? You sound like a broken record!"

The young girl thought about that for a minute, looked at her mom in a quizzical fashion, then said, "Mommie, what's a record?"

Mike