Technics SL-1210 Mk2 - Techie SR v.1.0

[samurasa]

Technics SL-1210 Mk2 SR v.1.0 – my first one so v1.0

My target is to have a neat and moody looking techie to play my records with grace and listening pleasure along with some cool tweaks to fiddle in the with when building be proud of it. The techie to be sacrified for hifi use is an old Technics SL-1210 Mk2 work horse from my previous life as a dj. Now it will be rid off of its “DJ” controls and additions, rubber plinth, the original tonearm and the in-plinth PSU. The platter will be modified and I´m considering making a few different kind of mods to the four platters (4 techie and one Project RPM 5.1 sandwich platter) I have and to be able to compare different platter mods. The bearing will have some moderate attention but Mike New bearing in the future will be my target as it is a component that has great significance to my knowledge. Though expensive… I made the plinth out of merbau-wood and will fill it with concrete. Thank you for the idea and inspiration Qwin. Also great examples and intructions from the AoS so thanks to you all!

Here´s my techie nude.

Kansi ilman lautasta.jpg

At first I wanted to cover the top plate with carbon fiber cloth but it proved to be too challenging due to the sharp corners and round shapes in techies top plate platter and the tonearm hole. It would have been cool looking though! So i decided to find a nice good paint and go with it. Stripping, filling the un-needed holes and sanding the top plate was easier than I thought. I filled the platter basin bottom with damping mass that’s usually used in car audio and some basic silicone to fill the gaps. Did that after the pic. Also sprayed car bottom protection (Tectyl bodysafe) mass on top and under the top plate to act as a base coat for finish paint.

Kansi ja helmamassa.jpg

The plinth will be made of grooved merbau plank that’s original use is for veranda floor. I want to have the corners made with fingerlocking connection and this a job work to a carpenter to get them neatly done. Inside of the plinth will be a mix of concrete and Atacama Atabites a layer of silicone gel under the top plate and one separate layer a silicone in the middle of concrete cast as well. Hopefully these will absorb and dissipate resonances.

Plintti-hionta.jpg

I stripped the platter of its underside rubber mat and filled it with the same car-audio damping mass (STP) instead on Dynamat to maintain the balance of the platter. The damping mass was so fluid it leveled itself as long as leveled the platter during curing.

Lautasella vaimennusmassa.jpg

Top of the platter I sanded to the aluminium and sprayed the same bodysafe spray on the top side. The platter really seems dead and also looks nice.I will paint the dots to match with the top plate.

Teknari-lautanen1.jpg

[samurasa]

Part 2.

Merbau is really nice looking wood. I sanded and grinded the old top oil off, deepened the grooves and put two layers of Osmo TopOil on top and a layer on antique wood wax that gave a really nice silky shine and a satin like feel to the wood. The wood grain came visible when brushing with steels brush before the oiling.

Plintti-koko.jpg Plintti-runko-valmis-koko.jpg Plintti-runko-valmis-yks.jpg

The feet are a construction of two rubber grommets inside each other, filled with silicone and in the innermost grommt there is a bolt adapter into one can attach any M8 bolt foot. I´m going to use Soundcare Superspikes that I have to spare and are also very good. Idea is to sink the grommet-feet into the concrete, under an underplate so that the top of the adapter is on top on the under plate. Hopefully the rubber grommets and the silicone will separate the feet of the plinth and the structural vibrations. The height is easy to adjust with the Superspikes threads and hopefully the weight is supported well inside the grommet and the silicone.

Teknari tassu-osat.jpg

Teknari-tassu-valmis.jpg

[samurasa]

Part 3.

The tonearm will be Michell Technoarm A, with a Sound supports armplate for Rega arm. I will use Michells tone arm de-coupling kit to separate the armplate from the top plate with some modification to the original de-coupling kit´s design to fit techie and get the tonearm to a reasonable height.

Here is the platter and armplate unpainted and the tonearm in fitting. The platter is not in place and the tonearm rests on the armplate and decoulling kit but some vision how it will look if everything goes as planned.

Teknari-sovitusta2.jpg

A pic without the platter.

Teknari-sovitusta1.jpg

I also painted the armplate to the same colour the top plate and thehe colour is BMW car paint no. 475 (Sapphire Black). Nice black metallic with some colour changing components and pearl white particles. I´ll put 2K car laquer on top and will wax it with Dodo Juice Purple Haze and Autoglym Golden hardwax to make it really shine and last.

Teknari-lautasen-reunamaalissa.jpg

The cartridge will be Empire Scientific MC1000 van den Hul M+ updated in 2010 and it has not been used since the update that included replacement of the stylus cantilever and the suspension. I´m excited to hear how it´ll sound. The PSU and regulator are to go outside the plinth. I got the pcb´s from Qwin and will proceed with them according to the great examples from this forum. Also the main pcb´s capacitors and resistors will be renewd.

Now waiting to get to cast the plinth and build the PSU.

-samurasa

[AlexM]

Hi Samuli,

I think the plinth will look very good when finished - I'm interested to see how this project turns out!.

I must say that I love the number of alternative plinths and completely new ways of re-using the motor, drive assemblies and logic that people are experimenting with at the moment - good work chaps...

Alex

[Andrei]

Samuli
Thank you very much for the pictures, I find this sort of thing to be inspirational. Or as they would say in Australia: 'Yera ninspiration tousall!'
I am sure many people will follow this with interest.

[samurasa]

Thank you for your support! Its really nice to get feedback and I´m glad if this inspires someone else too


Got the top plate from painter and I´m really satisfied with the result. The casting may commence!

Sealed and attached the topplate to the wooden frame with some car claylike sealing tape and used extra silicone to prevent the wood getting wet and isolating the concrete off of the wood frame and top plate.

Cast6-SRv1.0.jpg


The tonearm hole is a plastic funnel used in kitchen. Covered that with silicone too and put a grommet on top to get tonearm cabling out.
I used non-shrink grout concrete and regular concrete in the cast. The non-shrink (5 kg) was mixed with 9 kgAtacama Atabites for the mass.

Cast9-SRv1.0.jpg

I cast it and let it dry. Then the regular concrete (25 kg) in two sessions with enough time for it to dry properly. The mass now is about 40 kg but must confirm it when all the parts are in place so it will get somewhere around 45 kg
After the cast was dry I used silicone to seal the concrete and prevent it from crumbling.

Cast14-SRv1.0.jpg

There was a need to modify the feet but with a rubber tube and a metal plate in the threads of Superspikes the three legs support the weight easily.

Feetv2-SRv1.0.jpg

The result is a massively heavy plinth and easy to my eyes

Fitting-SRv1.0.jpg

Next I´ll finish the Qwinn´s PSU to its casing and get the electronics in to the deck.

[costerdock]

That is looking really nice - perhaps instead of painting the dots - simply have them machined off - and have a nice polished lip if at all possible.

[Audio Al]

Interesting project , good to see the progress

[Tarzan]

Interesting project , good to see the progress

x12

[samurasa]

"That is looking really nice - perhaps instead of painting the dots - simply have them machined off - and have a nice polished lip if at all possible."

I already painted the dots with the same paint as the top plate so think I´ll go with that. Maybe in some other platter ill make the lip clean and what would prevent switching the platters.
Actually I´m really tempted to get upgrade bearing and platter at some point as this is a battle worn veteran.

Here is a pic of the bearing. There is a proper wear in the thrust pad. Also the spindle hole in the platter isn´t perfect anymore though it spinns really nicely without too much wobble.

Bearing2-SRv1.0.jpg

Here a pic with the platter. The top plate has had four layers of Dodo Juice Purple Haze and one coating of Autoglym Extra Gloss Protection. Maybe too glossy as the imperfections are easy to see.

Techie-gloss-SRv1.0.jpg