Rim drive, you say? Repair and mods, you say??
Behold! The Miller Carbon!
https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367Carbon fiber BDR Source Shelf for the base, arm, and motor pod. I have built, repaired, and modified all of it!
Originally based on the Teres turntable.
https://teresaudio.com The Teres bearing is internally modified. The stock teflon on the brass thrust plate is silent when new but quickly wears through slightly increasing noise and slowly wearing a small hole in the brass thrust plate. So I replaced the thrust plate with some super hard material, tungsten carbide I think its called. Been a while. Then I modified the stainless ball bearing in the spindle, replacing it with silicon carbide. With now something like 15 years in use the last time I took it apart for inspection there was only the tiniest little speck of a spot to show where they meet. Technically wear, but infinitesimally tiny. After 15 years!
The bearing comes with a large stainless steel fastening nut. I drilled a hole in a 3" diameter piece of Source Shelf, threaded it, and that is my "nut". Because of the large diameter it gets plenty tight by hand and because the bearing is now totally encased it is incredibly well damped and rigidly held.
The motor likewise is mounted in BDR Source Shelf with BDR Cones. Stock from the factory the Teres Verus motor used little rubber feet. Which is okay but this was a big improvement. Only drawback being the lack of damping. Mechanical stuff like motors, rim drive and all does need to be damped. I found a combination of sorbothane, fo.Q tape and Blue Tack works pretty good.
The acrylic platter uses brass plugs to hold lead shot. I took it apart and coated the brass with TC. At the time noticed the brass rings. Well of course, its brass! But I didn’t have enough fo.Q tape to take care of that. Next time....
So I made all of this, and why is because after comparing a bunch of different turntables and materials this is the best I can find for the money.
A lot of this is directly applicable to your older tables. fo.Q tape and TC in particular. This combination will control vibration and improve electron shear so much you won’t believe. Incredibly cost effective. It works with my table which being BDR is about as dead as dead can be. I would think it would work at least as well on your tables.
