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Building high-end 'tables cheap at Home Despot II

“For those who want the moon but can't afford it or those who can afford it but like to have fun and work with their hands, I'm willing to give out a recipe for a true high-end 'table which is easy to do, and fun to make as sky's the limit on design/creativity! The cost of materials, including 'table, is roughly $200 (depending, more or less), and add to that a Rega tonearm. The results are astonishing. I'll even tell/show you how to make chipboard look like marble and fool and impress all your friends. If there's interest I'll get on with this project, if not, I'll just continue making them in my basement. The next one I make will have a Corian top and have a zebra stripe pattern! Fun! Any takers?”

The Lead in “Da Thread” as posted by Johnnantais - 2-01-04

Let the saga continue. Sail on, oh ships of Lenco!
mario_b
mgreene
107 posts
 
That's interesting Chuck. Have your tried reversing all of your cables? I can recall some strange humm and interference scenarios in NYC years ago that I traced to dirty connectors at the cartridge pins. The fact that it is only one channel makes me think that it is tonearm wire related.

MIke
cello
645 posts
 
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ccryder
45 posts
 
Hmmm. That makes some sense. I will fool around with it later this week and see what happens. Thanks.
goughary
10 posts
 
Bornin50 - So I've been looking for an AT1005 and can't seem to locate one. Any suggestions? Is there a particular deck that came with that arm standard? I'd rather not buy an entire deck, but so the story goes...

Any other suggestions out there on the right arm for an L70 when you don't want to lop off the corner or drill out a new hole? I don't mind enlarging the hole that's there, but What I am looking to do on my second L70 is to end up with a good looking vintage deck that sounds really good.

So - what to use? After all these years, I imagine that everything has been tried. Most of the great stuff here has been with the L75 and L78, clearly, but who are the lovers of the L70? Who hasn't cut theirs up, found the right arm and had a good set up with proper VTA, etc?

And where did the pictures go? I keep looking for pictures but they don't seem to come up anymore.

By the way Bornin50- you gave me some advice a year ago, and though I have no idea what that advice was, I used it, and the table I built with two arms (both SME 3009) came out great and sounds pretty good...But this one isn't going to have a big SME hole cut in it. And it won't have the same VTA problems that the other has...
bornin50
32 posts
 
Hi Goughary,

Nice to hear about the double SME, glad it worked out.

I would not want to cut an L70, I reserve that for the much more common 75. The AT could have been made for it, that was a lucky day for me!

http://www.freewebs.com/bornin50-3/index.htm

If you check out the L70 + AT1005 page, that's the first pic of my combo. The L70 is a favourite of mine, and that one is my control deck to see if my experiments on the other Lencos have any worth.

The AT1005 was popular in the early 70s, and usually paired up with motor units from Garrard etc.. A version was fitted as standard to the Leak 2001, but good luck finding one of those.

You are looking for an arm with effective length around 240mm, that puts the spindle to pivot at about 225mm. Most arms of that length are the studio units from yesteryear, EMT etc.

With a bit of filing the Regas or ADC variants can fit and are more readily available, although the problem of correct vta will always be a problem with Regas if the corner stays.

Regards
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