For a while, I’ve been pondering a change of plinth to put my 12in arm on the right, rather than at the back as was before, with the 9in arm at the back.
To further this, I got chatting to Russ Collinson (Layers of Beauty, well known to many here) and we discussed doing one with a Panzerholz core, wrapped in sold wood (rather than veneer). This is similar to the Artisan Fidelity approach, but with exactly my preferred wood choices: I wanted the external solid wood to to be sapele, finished to match my big Tannoys, the RFC Canterbury cabinets designed by Paul Coupe but built for me by Russ, to get the consistency of look.
For the core, we settled on Permali, which is almost identical density to Panzerholz, but UK made and therefore easier to get hold of.
So here’s the picture journey:
Spot on 40kg worth of Panzerholz as raw material (not cheap!)
Panzerholz core completed
Plinth completed. The cover over the 12in recess enables a 9in arm to be used in the normal TD124 position should that be required.
I managed to source some tonearm stabilisers, an evolution of the Fidelity Research N60 used on the FR64, for the Ikeda arms. These are 500g each and their heft really surprised me. See here pictured with one of the existing Ikeda tonearm nuts, to get a sense of scale.