New Maplenoll Ariadne owner needing advice

Charlie--Good to hear from you. missed your comments in recent weeks. Hope you are doing ok. I know you had some health issues. As for the centerpin. I am having some manufactured out of teflon(two types) so if you or others have a need, i will have some replacements. I am studying the Piedpiper mods and will work to develop a plinth for the external motor. As you state, it will not be an easy project but if i can use the existing motor and create the path for the belt, I might go that way. Still deciding on path forward. I also am modifying the stock arm to install my on the fly VTA and improved armwand/Headshell. I did learn an important lesson though it is costly. The bottom plate levelness/Flatness is critical. The table I purchased was not moving smoothly when the air was put on it. I swapped out my existing table bearing plate and walla, it is moving well. The heavier platter requires more air pressure to float (can not use my cheap aquarium pump) but it now turns easily. With the "slightly" warped bottom plate, it took a lot of air to float and was noisy. I will get the bottom plate refinished and resurfaced to make it useable. I have decided I will take my old table and refurbish similar to your approach and my arm modifications and sell it. I also have a bunch of spare parts to build my own version of airbearing table and arm. A project for the future. I will send some pics soon.

Oilmanmojo : What you have shaired is quite exciting news.

The platter and the air bearing plates I devoted much time and effort. A few ideas I wish to pass on:

My platter's underside, showed signs of wear perhaps a result of gravity's "pull" loaping the edges and creating wear rings where the top plate rested.. The bearings are undersized to support large slugs of lead for decades.I relate(from observation) the top bearing plate's size (or lack thereof) allows some of the underside of the lead platter to be unsupported creating potental stress points where gravity's pull ,over time, could affect the trueness of the platter. Most of these all-lead platters have been a top undersized air bearing plates for 20-25 years, perhaps, enought time for gravity to do its job. Storage of the platter ,other than on its flat sides, could also affect its trueness.

Lead is a soft metal that is not as stable as say steel. Heavy casted lead parts do deform over time no matter what one does. Its size, weight, design & fuction all relate to lead's ability to hold onto its casted shape as I was to learn.

During my rebuild process, I learned that the platter did have casting defects (covered over by thick black paint-presume lead based paint) that were only resolved by spin balancing ,on a lathe, "trueing", out foundary defects with hand sanding and a lot of care. Quite a messy job that I did outsource to a professional. The platter now spins true without "wavey-ness" as it revolves.

Lloyd Walker conversted years ago , that the 'Nolls air bearing plates are "hardened" cautioning me they might shatter should they be afixed to a high-speed lathe for truing, or crack if harshly handeled/sanded. Sometime later, a dealer emailed that he purchased a 'Noll damaged in transit. He brought the parts , taking them to a machine shop for repair. He wrote the shop attempted to true the plates ,cracking them in the process.

Oilman, just passing this along for whatever value it may hold for your rebuild.

I am looking forward to your design of a outboard motor unit. Perhaps we can all benefit from your work.

Charlie--Thanks for your insight on the platter. I agree that resurfacing will be a challenge. I first have to understand the alloy then i can find a shop to do it. I found an article from another website on a rebuild of a maplenoll athena from 1999 and he also indicated the issues with the platter. I have an old set of platters in the bunch of spare parts to play with first. Fortunately with my connections in the oil business and a brother in law who is a mechanical engineer with a specialist degree in materials, i hope to find the right place to resurface. I know it can be done because it was originally polished smooth. as for the lead platter, the signature is 90lbs of lead and as you highlighted, will be a chore in trueing up. This platter is bunged up also so i have work to do there. I will most likely outsource that as you did to get it truely level and balanced. That makes a great deal of difference. The other thing i have found is the spindle is not perfectly true. I will see what i can do with that also since it must be perfectly 90degrees to the air bearing plate to prevent the record from wobbling. An interesting find in the bag of extra parts. One of the air bearing spindles is grey in color and appears to be a different version as my signature or reference spindles. in addition, it is much smoother and glides in the sleeve pretty good even without air. Not sure if a surface treatment was done on it. but I will swap it out on my new project. damn i love these tables:^)

Well, I have completed my refinishing of the lead platter. I turned and balanced the platter. I decided not to grind down the outside dimensions to correct a couple of Dimples in the lead. Instead i used epoxy to fill the holes and then sanded the surface to true it up. I repainted the platter with a good grade of acrylic paint. Looks pretty good once finished. Now got to get some help in mounting this beast on my airbearing platter. I also fabricated the center pin out of teflon. I have two grades of teflon. one is the standard formula and one is an infused teflon that has some materials to improve its abrasion resistance. I will say the teflon is very smooth. I am not sure what the original pin is made out of. I also installed my walker valid point on the table. The airbearing block has been attached to the zlift so i now have the on the fly VTA on this table. I am working on the armrest and lifter since this particular model did not have either. My dampening system is still being designed, but i will once again install below the air bearing spindle versus the headshell. This is very similar to the Walker table though my design is not as elegant. The armwand materials are not in yet, but i will use a carbon fiber wand (xxstrength versus standard carbon tube. I also plan to run the wire in separate quadrants in the tube to minimize interference. I have found that the moving the wires just a little bit impacts hum in the phono preamp. The separate quandrants should help that as well as working on grounding issues between the table and the phono preamp. I will work to fill the internal cavity of the tube to minimize any possible resonance along the interior cavity of the tube. I am still looking at how to extend the fine wire from the cartridge clip to the preamp. the really fine wire is great for minimizing impacts to the floating of the armwand but is hell when changing cartridges (my fat fingers tend to snap the fine wire). My last solution was to solder the fine wire to a din connector then use high grade cartridge clips and wire to connect to the din connector. I will say however, the best sound comes from minimum connections from the cartridge tip to the phono preamp. My pump system will be my JunAir compressor i currently use on my existing table. I will initially get the unit up using the motor attached to the plinth. I am still looking at ways to design the motor in a separate plinth. I am trying to find a source for the corian so i can build one out of corian to match the table. The motors are pretty small but the plinth needs to have enough mass to hold the motor securely and absorb all of the vibration from the motor. I will have some initial pics this weekend

Let us know if and when you find a good source for the granite look corian as I also have plans for ancillary plinths, for the arm and motor.

Also, beware of too much arm dampening both from the stand point of over damping per se and as regards unnecessary dielectric losses.