New Maplenoll Ariadne owner needing advice

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.

Piedpiper, found a supplier that can deliver sheets of corian. Still looking for the exact or closest match. Size of sheet varies. The thickness of the corian is 1/2 inch but you can sandwich many layers together then drill out the motor enclosure. I am still debating on how to do the plinth. Got be heavy enough to be stable. The site is Solidsurface.com. On a separate note, having to go back and rebalance the platter. Takes too much air to float and a pretty good wave as the platter spins. Thanks for your thoughts on the damping. I may start by just running the wires in tube first. As for my oil dampening system. Its similar to what the original maplenoll design, just below the spindle instead of the headshell. I also found adjusting the viscosity of the oil was key to finding the right amount of dampening. My refinery makes a broad set of oils so i get to experiment some. If you are interested, i could sent you a set of different viscosities to try out. I am looking at a new headshell. I used the yamamoto wood (its first class) but will try a graphite headshell. I have a block of solid graphite that i am trimming down into a prototype headshell. I am also pondering an airbearing modification to improve the platter. As you know the airbearing arm has multiple ports to keep the airspindle floating and aligned. most of the new state of the art airbearings used in the positioning field have multiple ports on their rotory bearing plates. Critical parameter is equal pressuredrop through each nozzle. But the multiple nozzles will stabilize the platter with much less air flow and less noise. More to come on this subject

good work!