Is a turntable a musical instrument? Maybe...
Somehow I got myself into another project, bringing an old Dual 1229, I bought in 1972, back to working order.The fix was replacing a couple of small parts and then cleaning and lubricating. The grease tends to goop up over the years. I'm just waiting on some 500,000 weight silicone grease and I should be spinning soon. (No comments about the abandoned bass - I'm holding out to see if my SO, the one with electron microscope eyes, will finish the inlay work.)
I took a piece of 4/4 cocobolo that's been sitting in the shop a while and decided to make a turntable base out of it. I copied the original exactly so I had to resaw it and plane it down to 1/2" thickness. But it looked kind of bland. I was thinking of strips of ebony inlay until I saw this:
This is the original, which is what I have. The platter on mine is also the same as below, and has no metal inner ring on it like the one above.
The only difference is, on mine, there is a metal "United Audio" placard over the black band on the right side. The black band feels like some sort of rubber/plastic material. It could even be caulk.
I took a piece of scrap cocobolo and routed two 1/4" dados. I had some strips of 1/4" wide quilted maple that I glued into place. The fit was a little sloppy but I just wanted to see how the combination looked. I'm thinking recessing the maple might add some character.
This is after 3 coats of gloss spray can lacquer. I didn't apply any color to it (dye, stain, shellac or oil). Maybe if I applied some BLO over it before the lacquer the maple would pop more. If this is what I decide on, I'll run some tests with the BLO later.
At a website called Vinyl Engine, I noticed they called the turntable base a "plinth". A turntable wasn't in the images that popped into my mind when seeing that word. So I looked it up and I guess the idea is the turntable base should be heavy and provide stability, as plinths are designed to be. Cocobolo is heavy but by planing it to 1/2" it lost a lot of its weight. But the cocobolo is probably twice the weight of the original factory made base.
Still a lot of mental imagery work and testing left to do.