Hi all, long time reader of this forum, but now I post my DIY project. The turntable project began last winter and the linked photo journey shows its progress. The most recent project just finished is a DIY tonearm. I got lots of ideas for both from places as this. I hope you all enjoy the photo essay.
Here is an added journey report of the tonearm...
Well am just finalizing my latest DIY project. I decided recently to build a DIY tonearm to add to my existing DIY turntable. In doing so I built a new armboard for the tonearm.
After much reading on DIY projects and lots of prep work, trial mock ups and modifictions. I now have a working setup.
I introduce the new "Aurel Seduction" turntable with "Equinox Series One" tonearm.
The arm is based on a uni-pivot design of my own thoughts using info gained by looking at other uni-pivots. The arm tube is 3/8ths. inch aluminum that has been painted in multiple layers (8 total) of high quality silver colour aluminum wheel paint. Not only does it improve the look of the arm wand but adds good damping to it.
The uni-pivot housing is stacked layers of cut and sanded into a square block Corian, Painted silver too. The pivot is the tip of a good quality ball point pen affixed to a 5/16ths. aluminum shaft. The shaft is sleeved into the black armboard for VTA adjustibility. The ball point pen tip sits facing up into a drilled out and lightly polished aluminimu rod captured inside the Corian block. The arm pivot rod is designed to be able to work in all six directions, up down, left, right, and roll left and right. It can be lifted off as only the weight of the Corian (which is pretty heavy relative to its size) holds it in place. I have brass rods out each side of the block in line with the pivot point. There are brass nuts as outriggers to help keep rolling forces to a minimum.
The arm tube is affixed to an aluminum rod and that is secured to the Corian block by a solid set screw. The counter-weight rod is a 3/8ths. threaded rod with a layer of shrink tube affixed to its threads where it turns into the Corian block for support. The counter-weight is a series of 3/8th dia. opening fender washers epoxied together and sunk to hang below the rod. They are held in place by being pinched with threaded nuts. This allows me to make minor azimuth adjustments so the that cartridge rides parallel to the record.
My anti-skate is a fishing line and ball weight hanging on a rod and can be adjusted along that rod.
My cueing setup (is still a work in progress) but it's a home made design to pivot the arm up and down. It's a little too light and needs some work so that mass can more easily lower it to a record. It's damped with Vaseline but not as much as I like. As I said it remains a work in progress. (I recently added a lead weight to the cueing setup and the setup works better now.)
The head shell was cut out of 1/4 inch masonite board and sanded down to the profile you see now. It's quite stiff but very light. It was painted flat back for contrast.
The arm board sits above a Silestone plinth, it is three point mounted securely to the Silestone using 3/8ths x 2.5 inch long screws. I have rubber flat washers sandwiched between the flat black armboard and Silestone base plinth. The arm board is a multi-layer MDF, HDF design cut to shape and for asthetics. Each layer was glue together with wood glue and clamped tightly to dry. It carries good mass and the top layer came plastic laminated so it looks quite nice with the flat black finish.
The platter is a sandwich of an MDF sub donut drilled out an filled with 100 round lead type fishing weight. This sits on top my layered MDF sub drive platter. The platter attached to this donut is a 12 inch round Corian platter. The combined weight is over 10 lbs and the whole set up is quite resonant dead. It all sits on a built in sand box to my top shelf of the stand.
How does it sound? Pretty good so far. I still am tweaking it. But is it better than my stock Rega RB250 arm? Hard to say, I require time to listen and get use to it. It cost me a little over $40.00 for all parts, paint n' stuff. But some things I bought were not needed or used and thusly could probably have been anywhere from $5-10 cheaper. So in my case does a $40 dollar arm give the RB250 a run? Well lets say for sound quality so far I am not disappointed. Uni-pivots are more fussy in setup but can work quite well based on their simple design concept.
This project has taken me more time than I thought because of my tinkering and modifications as I was building it. I tried different ideas before I settled on what you all see here in the photo essay.
Am I going to keep it long term over my RB250? Not sure. I'm proud of my work and that it seems to operate well but it is something I'm going to live with for a while to see how it grows on me.
It has been interesting, fun at times, and bothersome at others as I tried to design and build it out properly. Love it or leave it long term, well no matter what it works well with more tweaks needed esp. the cuing setup and I learned more about tonearms as a result. It looks quite commercial and not too DIY, which is what I wanted and needed for me to be happier with it, I'm kinda fussy that way. I'll keep it running for a good while and keep my RB250 in storage just in case my thrill over the DIY arm falls off.
LINK TO PHOTOS
Here is an added journey report of the tonearm...
Well am just finalizing my latest DIY project. I decided recently to build a DIY tonearm to add to my existing DIY turntable. In doing so I built a new armboard for the tonearm.
After much reading on DIY projects and lots of prep work, trial mock ups and modifictions. I now have a working setup.
I introduce the new "Aurel Seduction" turntable with "Equinox Series One" tonearm.
The arm is based on a uni-pivot design of my own thoughts using info gained by looking at other uni-pivots. The arm tube is 3/8ths. inch aluminum that has been painted in multiple layers (8 total) of high quality silver colour aluminum wheel paint. Not only does it improve the look of the arm wand but adds good damping to it.
The uni-pivot housing is stacked layers of cut and sanded into a square block Corian, Painted silver too. The pivot is the tip of a good quality ball point pen affixed to a 5/16ths. aluminum shaft. The shaft is sleeved into the black armboard for VTA adjustibility. The ball point pen tip sits facing up into a drilled out and lightly polished aluminimu rod captured inside the Corian block. The arm pivot rod is designed to be able to work in all six directions, up down, left, right, and roll left and right. It can be lifted off as only the weight of the Corian (which is pretty heavy relative to its size) holds it in place. I have brass rods out each side of the block in line with the pivot point. There are brass nuts as outriggers to help keep rolling forces to a minimum.
The arm tube is affixed to an aluminum rod and that is secured to the Corian block by a solid set screw. The counter-weight rod is a 3/8ths. threaded rod with a layer of shrink tube affixed to its threads where it turns into the Corian block for support. The counter-weight is a series of 3/8th dia. opening fender washers epoxied together and sunk to hang below the rod. They are held in place by being pinched with threaded nuts. This allows me to make minor azimuth adjustments so the that cartridge rides parallel to the record.
My anti-skate is a fishing line and ball weight hanging on a rod and can be adjusted along that rod.
My cueing setup (is still a work in progress) but it's a home made design to pivot the arm up and down. It's a little too light and needs some work so that mass can more easily lower it to a record. It's damped with Vaseline but not as much as I like. As I said it remains a work in progress. (I recently added a lead weight to the cueing setup and the setup works better now.)
The head shell was cut out of 1/4 inch masonite board and sanded down to the profile you see now. It's quite stiff but very light. It was painted flat back for contrast.
The arm board sits above a Silestone plinth, it is three point mounted securely to the Silestone using 3/8ths x 2.5 inch long screws. I have rubber flat washers sandwiched between the flat black armboard and Silestone base plinth. The arm board is a multi-layer MDF, HDF design cut to shape and for asthetics. Each layer was glue together with wood glue and clamped tightly to dry. It carries good mass and the top layer came plastic laminated so it looks quite nice with the flat black finish.
The platter is a sandwich of an MDF sub donut drilled out an filled with 100 round lead type fishing weight. This sits on top my layered MDF sub drive platter. The platter attached to this donut is a 12 inch round Corian platter. The combined weight is over 10 lbs and the whole set up is quite resonant dead. It all sits on a built in sand box to my top shelf of the stand.
How does it sound? Pretty good so far. I still am tweaking it. But is it better than my stock Rega RB250 arm? Hard to say, I require time to listen and get use to it. It cost me a little over $40.00 for all parts, paint n' stuff. But some things I bought were not needed or used and thusly could probably have been anywhere from $5-10 cheaper. So in my case does a $40 dollar arm give the RB250 a run? Well lets say for sound quality so far I am not disappointed. Uni-pivots are more fussy in setup but can work quite well based on their simple design concept.
This project has taken me more time than I thought because of my tinkering and modifications as I was building it. I tried different ideas before I settled on what you all see here in the photo essay.
Am I going to keep it long term over my RB250? Not sure. I'm proud of my work and that it seems to operate well but it is something I'm going to live with for a while to see how it grows on me.
It has been interesting, fun at times, and bothersome at others as I tried to design and build it out properly. Love it or leave it long term, well no matter what it works well with more tweaks needed esp. the cuing setup and I learned more about tonearms as a result. It looks quite commercial and not too DIY, which is what I wanted and needed for me to be happier with it, I'm kinda fussy that way. I'll keep it running for a good while and keep my RB250 in storage just in case my thrill over the DIY arm falls off.
LINK TO PHOTOS