How would you make a TT lid / dust cover

[Audio Al]

?????????????

Any comments ?

[Marco]

Out of sticky-backed plastic and squeezy bottles, but only on a Tuesday.

Marco.

[struth]

I wouldnt I would get someone else to do it....I used to work with perspex workers. talented guys. They used ether as the glue by the way.

[Gordon Steadman]

Out of wood, the same as everything else I make:)

[Oldpinkman]

If you knew the misery lids caused us at pink triangle you wouldn't go near the idea. There are plenty of business out there will make you one. The only really proper way to do it is injection moulded, and for a pink triangle lid the mould would be over a tonne, which starts to get seriously expensive. So we used perspex cut with 45 degree mitre edges, a former /jig and ether glue. The glue always showed.

[The Black Adder]

Get some panels cut, buy some adhesive and bobs your dogs dangles.

[Tarzan]

I can make you one at work Al- 2 pint or 4 pint?:)

[Reffc]

If you knew the misery lids caused us at pink triangle you wouldn't go near the idea. There are plenty of business out there will make you one. The only really proper way to do it is injection moulded, and for a pink triangle lid the mould would be over a tonne, which starts to get seriously expensive. So we used perspex cut with 45 degree mitre edges, a former /jig and ether glue. The glue always showed.

Sorry but that's a lot of old rot Richard :ner: These days, the best way is STILL 45 degree cut mitre BUT glues have come on a long way and you can get invisible joins using UV cured bonding agents for best results. Heat forming lids, especially thinner lids leads to stresses being introduced which often result in wavy lid edges and similar issues. I would agree that to do a proper job, you'll not do it via the DIY route without unsightly glue joins (assuming you find an appropriate bonding agent) and you have to be exceptionally careful and lucky to get everything glued up square too. For professional results, use the professionals. For just a lid with visible glue joins that may or may not be square, you can risk the DIY route but you dont end up saving a bundle as acrylic isn't cheap.

[shane]

http://www.perspex.co.uk/top-nav/fabricators/

[hifi_dave]

I really wouldn't even try. I would buy one from our friend at RFC. Great lids at very reasonable prices, so why bother and end up with a pig's ear ?

[Desmo]

I really wouldn't even try.

+1

I removed the cover from my turntable years ago, and now keep the dust off with a Michell Uni Cover. Thats all I need really.

http://hifilounge.co.uk/michell-engineering-uni-cover

[Oldpinkman]

Sorry but that's a lot of old rot Richard :ner: These days, the best way is STILL 45 degree cut mitre BUT glues have come on a long way and you can get invisible joins using UV cured bonding agents for best results. Heat forming lids, especially thinner lids leads to stresses being introduced which often result in wavy lid edges and similar issues. I would agree that to do a proper job, you'll not do it via the DIY route without unsightly glue joins (assuming you find an appropriate bonding agent) and you have to be exceptionally careful and lucky to get everything glued up square too. For professional results, use the professionals. For just a lid with visible glue joins that may or may not be square, you can risk the DIY route but you dont end up saving a bundle as acrylic isn't cheap.

I don't think its wrong - but maybe the semantics were sloppy. I implied nothing but an injection moulded lid would do - I meant to say "you can get a much better lid made using mitre and glue by a professional with experience and the right tools, than you will ever achieve by yourself. However, as a manufacturer, like say - oh Technics - making a lid for say - oh an SL1200 - where the volumes enable you to invest in a mould and have injection moulds made - then you would go that route because the quality is as good as you will ever need, and it is a low-cost reliable solution"

Why bother with a thinner lid? The cost is the mould not the plastic (I have a client who is a specialist injection mould manufacturer - LPS engineering, and have discussed this issue with them several times) and there are no quality issues with injection moulding. But it is plainly not a practical solution until you get production volumes in excess of 1000, preferably 10,000. So with the benefit of 20:20 hindsight, and a bit of engineering instead of "break the mould" creativity, we should never have used that skirting board plinth, and required a deeper than standard lid which had to be hand made. We should have copied Linn (LP12 injection moulded) and made a plinth for which there was an existing moulded lid available!!!! I think our lid cost 60x what theirs did to make! :( And theirs never came apart.

[walpurgis]

I like vacuum formed polycarbonate lids. They are resistant to scratching and being all one piece (no joints) are stronger, less prone to cracking too.

[DSJR]

I'd get in touch with Anglia Plastics, as recommended by a banned member here. For around sixty notes, you'd get a well made and finished cover to your dimensions in whatever colour they can supply (or clear of course).

[Reffc]

There's a lot of misinformation going on here which I can't let go unchecked.

1. There's nothing WEAK or bad about a properly mitre jointed acrylic or polycarbonate lid providing that the right methods of construction and bonding are used. I use a company who specialise in producing displays for some of London's top arts centres and museums. They don't supply crap...it's all top quality stuff (and prices through my tendered contract with them are very reasonable indeed).

2. Acrylic scratch resistance is a bit of a red herring since it is actually fairly scratch resistant providing you don't clean it with a scotchbrite pad or sand paper:doh: A soft cloth used for the odd dust will not result in scratches. My Garrard lid is a fair few years old and still cleans up like new. You can also improve scratch resistance by using modern polymerised car body resin polishes too.

3. Vacuum forming is usually only done for thinner lid sections. I have lids produced in thicknesses up to 5mm. It is less suited to thicknesses of this type and any bespoke lid will cost an absolute fortune to have vacuum formed as the jigs are custom made for specific sizes which brings us back to mitred joints.

4. I have NEVER had a lid crack. Not once. I have had many dozens of these things made and customers have been delighted with the outcome. Cracking implies that part of the lid is over stressed, that cut outs have been improperly formed or that the material is unsuitable or too thin etc.

Honestly, a little more homework on the advances in mitre jointing and the topic in general wouldn't go amiss. You can have joints as strong as the material itself these days and invisibly formed if using for example UV jointing techniques.

DIY lids are perfectly possible to produce for the cost of a sheet of acrylic. Good ones (strong, neat, square) are not.

[shane]

Ever wondered why most british turntables from the '80s are the same size? When Linn/Ariston started making the LP12 they found out about the cost of injection moulding tools and started off buying in lids from Lenco (the one with the perspex prop). After a few years they invested in a moulding tool and made their own, but of course it was the same size as it had to fit the existing LP12.

When we developed the TT2, our total budget for the whole project at the time (1982) was about £3,000. We were quoted £20,000 for an injection moulding tool for a bespoke lid, so we went to talk to Ivor who was very helpful and agreed to supply us with LP12 lids (and felt mats, another surprisingly difficult thing to source). From what I observed, the same happened to Fons, STD, C J Walker et al, so it wasn't down to lack of imagination that they all ended up looking identical!

[Audio Advent]

There's a lot of misinformation going on here which I can't let go unchecked.

1. There's nothing WEAK or bad about a properly mitre jointed acrylic or polycarbonate lid providing that the right methods of construction and bonding are used. I use a company who specialise in producing displays for some of London's top arts centres and museums. They don't supply crap...it's all top quality stuff (and prices through my tendered contract with them are very reasonable indeed).

2. Acrylic scratch resistance is a bit of a red herring since it is actually fairly scratch resistant providing you don't clean it with a scotchbrite pad or sand paper:doh: A soft cloth used for the odd dust will not result in scratches. My Garrard lid is a fair few years old and still cleans up like new. You can also improve scratch resistance by using modern polymerised car body resin polishes too.

3. Vacuum forming is usually only done for thinner lid sections. I have lids produced in thicknesses up to 5mm. It is less suited to thicknesses of this type and any bespoke lid will cost an absolute fortune to have vacuum formed as the jigs are custom made for specific sizes which brings us back to mitred joints.

4. I have NEVER had a lid crack. Not once. I have had many dozens of these things made and customers have been delighted with the outcome. Cracking implies that part of the lid is over stressed, that cut outs have been improperly formed or that the material is unsuitable or too thin etc.

Honestly, a little more homework on the advances in mitre jointing and the topic in general wouldn't go amiss. You can have joints as strong as the material itself these days and invisibly formed if using for example UV jointing techniques.

DIY lids are perfectly possible to produce for the cost of a sheet of acrylic. Good ones (strong, neat, square) are not.

You absolutely can let it go unchecked - but you didin't want it to without giving your thoughts. Certianly different things - always makes me laugh when people say they can't let something pass... yes you can, just try harder! :lol:

Depends from what point of view your talking about - manufacturing where you get to see it new and then it's out of your hands. Or are we talking about lids which last 30 years? Linn lids last 30 years, pink triangle ones don't. New ways of bonding the edges may be superiour but we can't travel in time to then see if they will all be intact in 30 years time.

E.g. what is the deteriation spec of the newer bonding techiques and materials? Has any of it been tested over enough decades to know or is it theory and trust but you know they will at least last a couple of years fine from experience of the first you've made/had made? Can't extrapolate like that from theory as it doesn't work in practice.

Hence oldpinkman speaks of 20:20 hindsight - I'm sure they were confident of the strength of their mitre jointed lids too.

I'm not having a go, but what you say is really still only opinion over the long term or you're missing the point and only speaking about the relative short term? Unless of course you've been using the same technique for 20 years.. in which case you should point that out we can all benefit from that wisdom.

[Audio Advent]

Ever wondered why most british turntables from the '80s are the same size? When Linn/Ariston started making the LP12 they found out about the cost of injection moulding tools and started off buying in lids from Lenco (the one with the perspex prop). After a few years they invested in a moulding tool and made their own, but of course it was the same size as it had to fit the existing LP12.

When we developed the TT2, our total budget for the whole project at the time (1982) was about £3,000. We were quoted £20,000 for an injection moulding tool for a bespoke lid, so we went to talk to Ivor who was very helpful and agreed to supply us with LP12 lids (and felt mats, another surprisingly difficult thing to source). From what I observed, the same happened to Fons, STD, C J Walker et al, so it wasn't down to lack of imagination that they all ended up looking identical!

That's why I find it so hilarious (figure of speech) that people will pay so much more for a perfect Linn lid as replacement but won't touch any of the identical lids from the same era - just change the badge!

[Audio Advent]

Personally I would prefer one which went over the whole deck - solves so many problems and is generally re-usable for most decks (but raises another of where to put it when playing records). Makes a deck look a whole load more good looking whilst kind of making it into a work of art in a cabinet.