[mgalusha]

I am in the process of rebuilding my table. It originally started life as sort of a Teres 265 some years ago. I say sort of since I purchased the bearing and motor from Chris at Teres but made the platter from solid cocobolo and filled it with lead shot. It sounded great but unfortunately the wood moved around as wood always does and of course the platter was only really round for a while after being trued.

Last year at RMAF I finally broke down and purchased one of the Verus motors and controllers from Chris and took delivery a few months later. This necessitated a new platter as rim drive would not be nearly as forgiving as the belt in regards to the slow creep of the wood. I was able to borrow a platter from Wayne W. at BOLDER Cables as he wasn't using his table at the moment. Obviously not a long term solution but a great short term one. This allowed me to hear just how much better the new motor/controller combo was so the quest for a new platter was on.

A few calls with Chris at Teres and some $$ netted a platter and bearing assembly from his Certus direct drive models. He was able to sell me some spare parts that were not production quality and needed a bit of rework. Worked out well for both of us and I'm very thankful for his assistance.

The bearing housing was an experimental version and didn't have a mounting mechanism. The result was turning a 2.5" diameter piece of brass to hold the bottom of the bearing housing and to go through the plinth, securing the bearing to the plinth. The platter is made from a combination of a phenolic type material and a 3/4" thick plate bolted to the bottom. The plate and platter were not quite the same size, so a bit of work was required on that as well. There is a counter bore near the outside of the plate and it was .040 too small. As I don't have a large enough lathe to handle this, I made a mounting arbor for the plate and spun it in the milling machine with a cutter clamped in the vise. Not elegant but it got the job done.

Tonight I made the first of the footers. I decided easy adjustment for the height was important, so the footers have a 1" diameter captive nut that will be sunk into the bottom of the plinth. The footer is turned about .050 smaller and is threaded 1/2 - 20 to match the captive nut. The diameter is slightly smaller to allow clearance in the bottom of the plinth. A 1" long piece of 1/2" dia brass all thread joins them. The bottom of the footer is bored .375" dia x .200" deep and a hard chrome ball bearing is staked into the footer. I am hoping this works well as I will still have point contact with the shelf but without a pointy cone digging in.

Anyway, a few pics. I will take some of the other bits as they come together.

mike

[Scott F.]

Awesome 

[mgalusha]

Awesome 

Thanks Scott. If you make out in October it should be spinning by then, hopefully much sooner than that.

[mgalusha]

This is finally coming together. Of course it took longer than I'd hoped for but it appears it's going to turn out fairly well.

I have to put a few more coats of tung oil on the base but otherwise all the parts are done. A few more photos.








This the bearing and mount assembly. The bearing was originally for a Teres Certus direct drive with a completely different mounting system. I machined a holder for the bearing from 2.5" diameter brass. The fit between the bearing and the holder is about .0005", quite snug. A 3/8" stainless steel setscrew secures the bearing to the mount. While the mount looks tall, when installed all except for approximately 1/4" sits inside the plinth in a counter bored hole. The bearing mount is a very snug fit into the plinth and is threaded on the bottom and will be pulled into the base via stainless cap screw and washer.







The platter assembly is 2.5" of phenolic resin with a 1" aluminum plate bolted to the bottom via 16 stainless cap screws. There are 18 holes bored into the bottom of the phenolic 1.125" in diameter and 2" deep. These are filled with #9 lead shot. There is a large brass hub that is bolted to the bottom plate that sits on top of the bearing spindle and is attached with 8 SS cap screws. The hub is also attached to the base with more SS cap screws. As you might have guessed, I tried to keep the entire assembly as non magnetic as possible.









This is the hub and bearing spindle. The bearing and spindle are much larger than those in my older Teres model, hopefully this translates into improved performance.

More photos to follow once I get some additional tung oil on the base and get it assembled. Maybe, just maybe it can play a record tomorrow. I could stuff it together today but better to wait a few more days and get more oil on the wood.

I really want to hear how the completed piece will sound. The platter seems really inert and it weighs in at 34.9 lbs. Just over 35 lbs once the record clamp is on.

[PeteG]

Wow! it looks great. Let us all know how it sounds. If I can make it to your place Oct 13th I would love to hear it.

[orthobiz]

That's some seriously sick stuff going on! Man I wish I could tool things like that. Keep the pics coming!!!

Paul

[DaveyW]

Yes - Looking very nice indeed 
Will be watching with interest.
What sort of platter mass are you looking at?
Cheers
Dave

[JoshK]

Sweet!

[mgalusha]

What sort of platter mass are you looking at?

It's right at 35 lbs.

[bpape]

Nice job Mike.  Would love to hear it.

Bryan

[mgalusha]

Three coats of oil on the base now. I'm starting to like it.

[mgalusha]

Managed to get everything assembled this evening and first impressions are very favorable. Bass, dear Lord where did that come from? No bloat, just deep and defined. Imaging seems rock solid as well. I'm sure a bit more tweaking will be needed to the VTA and alignment but it seems pretty close.

More photos..

[BobM]

That Moerch arm looks so flimsy on that ballsey table Mike. You need something massive like and SME 

Only joking, I have a DP6 also and it is an excellent arm. Looking great.

[mgalusha]

Now that I've been listening to this for a few days I'm extremely pleased with the results. This table disappears unlike anything I've ever had before. I keep finding myself forgetting about the system while playing music. It was good before but I'm quite amazed at how much this has changed my system. I was hoping there would be a worthwhile improvement over my old setup but as of now I'm just grinning a lot. I suppose it could just be a honeymoon but if so, I hope it never ends.

[TomS]

Awesome work Mike and glad it sounds terrific! I can only imagine...

[Scott F.]

Very nice 

Hey, after you listen to it for a while, try this little tweak. Move the rim drive to the point where the idler wheel is at the same elevation as the bearing thrust plate. The thought is that if the idler wheel is low on the bearing it puts latitudinal force on the bearing shaft causing excessive friction. When you move it to the elevation of the thrust plate, you remove that force greatly reducing friction and increasing speed stability (hopefully). It make a nice audible difference on my LP5 (30# platter weight).

[mgalusha]

Scott,

Great idea but in this case it's already very close to the level of the thrust bearing. The actual level of the thrust bearing is about the mid point of the aluminum base of the platter. I have the idler just above that plate. There might be enough adjustment range in the motor controller to accommodate the larger diameter of the sub plate, I will have to try. Certainly easy enough to lower the motor.

Mike

[JoshK]

Looks freaking awesome!

[mgalusha]

Thanks Josh, I am really happy with the result in both the audio and visual realms.

[Hank]

Great work!