Mounting Triplanar Tonearm to SME 20/2 Turntable

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This doesn't mean that it's an acceptable application. Just curious.  

Regarding the 3M UHB tape as your aware they make both
quite thin and thicker versions. I also use it often and 
am offen surprised at its applications.  

Take your time. Big mistake everyone makes is thinking they can figure it out or take advice and do that and be done. Which you certainly can do. But you will be missing out. Because this is not rocket science, nor is it even science at all. Or even exact. My arm sits in a hole and seems quite stable and fixed, yet its really just sitting in a hole held in place by its own weight. Probably some wannabee is right now typing away at a post getting ready to flame on me for the impossibility of this sounding any good at all due to the imprecision of the hole slop, inability to ground vibrations, lack of constrained layer damping, or whatever. As if I haven't heard with my own ears how much better it sounds.

Right now is the best time, you can easily experiment with different things as simple as cutting pieces of wood, acrylic, etc and trying them out. Anything from tape to clamp to a screw or two, anything to hold the arm in place long enough to play a little music. You can for that matter even hear the difference between one screw and two, tight or loose, tape or screw, etc. Guarantee it will not take long to hear what's going on, in fact you will be surprised how fast and obvious it is, and it don't have to look pretty or anything. Try it out, be amazed what you learn. One day, few hours, be ahead of 99.9% which is being generous, as I doubt if even 0.1% have done the kinds of things I'm talking about. 

Looking at your table and arm, you could take a hole saw and cut some arm mounting blanks out of different materials- wood, acrylic, aluminum, whatever. Cut a slot and you will be able to swap them out without even having to disconnect the phono leads. Make them all the same thickness so you don't have to mess with VTA. If your local guy can help, ask him if he has some scrap wood or whatever you can try this with. Then when you find what you like best have him make you one sanded all pretty and nice.

I could also have a wooden disk cut to the same size circle as the SME arm board and attach the TP arm to it. I don't want to detract from the aesthetics of the system, but I suppose I can paint it black so it blends OK.  

This will result in reduced performance. Here's why:
One thing that is really important in any turntable is the fact that vibration occurs in the plinth. If the vibration is different in the arm mount as opposed to the platter surface, it will be interpreted by the pickup as a coloration. So the armboard should be of the same material and as tightly coupled to the plinth as possible. Anything else will introduce a coloration.


If I were you I would get a blank arm board from SME and simply drill the three mounting holes for the screws.

This will result in reduced performance

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"Will"? WILL??? 

Or, "I think it will". Or how about, "According to something I read somewhere it will." Or better yet, "I'm guessing with no real clue that it will."

Apprently someone didn't read the post above. Either that or doubts what was heard and written. Because if it really is so important for the arm to be coupled then why does it sound so much better when its not? And if its really so important for materials to match then why does it sound so much better when they don't?

Another thing I notice, conspicuous by its absence, is any mention of having actually made comparisons and learned from experience. Not one word along the lines of this is based on experience.  Instead all we have is unsupported unsubstantiated opinion.

Right? Right???