Thorens TD150 refurb

[stewartwen]

www.theanalogdept.com for all your Thorens questions!
S

[rusty bearing]

A little progress, the sound damping is in place. As cost is a consideration at the present time I had as Michael Caine would have said,
"a great idea"
There is in the loft a roll of underfloor sound deadening underlay @ 3mm thick so this has been pressed into service. I did the top plate as well but have removed some as it interfered witht the 'bounce.





Spent a little time putting some oak throught the thicknesser and routing it up to take away some of the simplicity. Glued and cramped it up and just talken it out, diagonals perfect and no twist. If it rains tommorrow as promised I can sand it up indoors, add the supports, an IEC socket and see how it all looks.

Finally for the base panel I had a kitchen door that had been drilled incorrectly, not by me for once! 22mm thick very dense MDF. I think the base will be fairly solid with this in it plus more sound damping on it....

[flatpopely]

I'm late to this thread but I rebuilt a TD150 20 years ago. Here is what I did and when finished it was very close to my mates new LP12/Ittok.

1. Strip and clean the whole deck
2. Get a new hardwood plinth - local cabinet maker did this
3. Get an old LP12 armboard and cut to fit 150 plinth
4. DID NOT APPLY DAMPING ANYWHERE.
5. Fit an LVX/Basik Plus ot RB250/300
6. Fit an AT95 cart

Sounded ace.

[DSJR]

You could always find a clean old LP12 plinth and just graft an LP12 armboard straight on. Fools a good few

Great old deck, but prices are rapidly following Lencos now

[rusty bearing]

It is as you say Dave, a lovely old deck though I believe the prices have started moving up because the 301's 401's Lenco's et al are simply more than most (meaning me) are prepared to pay so naturally look around for something more affordable (cheap!).

Wonder what will be next?

Linn plinth? Could do but I'm happy making my own, its half the fun. Besides I've been a joiner now for more years than I care to remember so I can't really take the easy way can I?
I have run out several arm-boards though with the thought that I can try more than one arm /cart combination, pennies permitting of course.

[DSJR]

Ah, I didn't know you were a joiner Might be another nice man for us to know here

See if you can get a looky at the innards of a typical Linn plinth. The battens look a bit flimsy, but have always been stapled and glued to the hardwood frame. The huge corner fillets were a definite improvement as before, the frame could "boing" a bit like a tambourine. The two mounting blocks on the LP12 plinths of ancient times were very variable in hardness and this, coupled with the sometimes lop-sided "squareness," made for lop sided top plates which dipped excessively, put the spring-bolts out of parallel and caused all manner of setup issues - we were master setter-uppers back then

I'm only telling you this so you can design and build these things out of your TD150 plinth. Get the top plate sitting naturally square and true on each corner and firmly attached in the Thorens mounting points. make sure the suspension bolts are parallel (Linn made a tool for this which works well) and, when you reassemble the suspension parts, a smear of talc may not go amiss, as it will be easier to rotate the springs to get the suspension centered and bouncing properly - it should bounce vertically piston-like with no shimmy or lateral shaking.

Thorens original belts can easily be got now. Other pattern belts are often too thick and pull the suspension over. The proper ones have "Thorens" written on the outside. My favoured lube for the mainbearing is EP80, as it's dead cheap and viscous enough for the ball and thrust plate at the bottom. There are other fancy types which I'm sure are fine as well and I think my 125 may have something fancy in it, although I haven't drained it to find out. I believe Thorens used a turbine oil, which smelled like thinner EP80 to be honest. I tend to part fill the bearing LP12 style, mopping up any excess which comes out and allowing for the inevitable hydraulic lock one gets with these older decks, the platter taking ages to sink back down into position.

Andrew's advice re arms is excellent, as these weigh the right amount and won't overload the springs (the mass is too low for Linn springs IMO). The ubiquitous SME models (9") should be fine too, if you want a period feel...

More pics please as setup progresses

[rusty bearing]

I've got the thing sat in its old plinth beside me as I speak. Talced and cleaned the springs last week, With the SME temporarily mounted it levels up nicely and 'quivers' for @12 seconds. Nice vertical bounce.
The setup seems quite easy or maybe I'm just lucky
Anyway by end next week I reckon I'll have it running to see what it sounds like, then maybe think about rewireing the arm to some phono sockets after some soldering practice.



Do you mean EP80 as in Castrols transmission fluid?

[Alex_UK]

Do you mean EP80 as in Castrols transmission fluid?

Don't go wasting your money on Castrol - Halfords' own is fine. (about £8 and a bottle will last a lifetime - probably 2!)

[Rare Bird]

The area most dudes buying an old 'TD150' go wrong imho, is they tend to remake the plinth to the original, hence retaining the narrow armboard instead of re working the design to take a wider board... When removing the original armboard you will discover the replacement will require a small rebate underside.

[rusty bearing]

The area most dudes buying an old 'TD150' go wrong imho, is they tend to remake the plinth to the original, hence retaining the narrow armboard instead of re working the design to take a wider board... When removing the original armboard you will discover the replacement will require a small rebate underside.

Absolutely. If starting from scratch make it a bit bigger. My only worry would be at what point does this start to affect the springs ability to balance the weight?

There weren't no board with this one but I believe the originals were 81mm wide and 10mm thick? Anyway I made the new ones at 91 x 12.5 and length of top plate -4mm just to give more, and this is a technical term here, 'wiggle room'