Building high-end 'tables cheap at Home Despot II

Hi Mosin,
It is with no small degree of anticipation that many of us await the unveiling of your slate plinthed turntable, with hopes of a good, opened-source look inside. While I suspect that you may well be onto something with slate as a “superior” plinth material, I must call your attention to the main thrust of this thread and it’s earlier lost mother thread – “Building high end ‘tables cheap…”

While I think this thread should be open to alternatives and discourse, at the end of the day, if those alternatives leave us with a high degree of cost and complexity, it becomes a question of just how they fit in here under the original premise. I think you’ve been accommodated and we appreciate your views and expertise.

This thread’s main objective is to continue what Jean started four years ago;
to offer an extremely affordable recipe for folks of all skill levels to build a high-end turntable. It is a testament to Jean’s nailing this just right, that this recipe still holds true today. The job still can be done with hand tools and some rips and crosscuts for a trifling fee down at the local lumber yard. (Mr. JStark, you can get by with a borrowed $69 router and some patient set-ups with jigs.)
To be sure, this portal may have morphed into a bit of a redirection to center to Francois’ great Lenco dedicated site, but it still remains as a guidepost and kiosk for many to touch base with. Part of the draw over to Lenco Lovers is the ability to post pictures into a thread instantaneously – something not possible here. (I’ve often wondered how they get by over on Audiogon’s sister site – Photogon?)

Mosin, you are always most welcome over at Lenco Lovers and your designs and ideas will be given full field travel rights.
But in the end, this is still Jean’s thread and his platform. A lot of us still feel protective in allowing him this space to continue on as he see fit by way of thanks for turning us on. Nearly all of us check in regularly to get our fills of his wild newsletters from the wilds of Canada. Many of us like the fun flow of it all.

Mosin, I hope you will take this in the good spirit in which it is given.

All best,
Mario

Well Mosin,
Seems that a simul-post with Jean has left my caution moot. Seem's Jean is going to rock on, as well.
All best,
Mario

Ok, I have been following this. Are we talking about slate over plywood/mdf or just a slate (only) plinth?

Has anyone actually worked slate with woodworking tools? The only web reference that I found recommended a jigsaw.

Finally I would hope that anyone cutting slate at home is wearing a mask - I remember seeing something on TV about silicosis or miner's lung disease - which appeared as soon as miners began using steam powered drills. I recall that some miners went down after as few as 2 or 3 days on the drill.

Mike

PS: Wait 'til you see my new speakers :)

I would not go against 1.5 - 2.0 slate with the jigsaw.
Wet saw with diamond blade is more like it IMO.
Or take it to a local shop - it might cost you around $100 for few straight cuts.

Mario,
got the router(2) , got the jigs(thanks to you.. remember).
I am good. All I need is time & this forum to guide me through.
Thank you and John for all your work and time to share with the rest.

Mario,

Talking about outside the box ideas is my forte. Thanks for reminding me about how the thread started, though. Bear in mind that we are talking about DIY things, so I see the discussion of slate to be appropriate, and just because someone embarks upon an expansive project doesn't mean that nothing is to be discovered by those who are not so inclined. Nothing is created from a vacuum; things all start someplace, and sometimes that someplace is an esoteric one. You can do almost anything on the cheap, if you set your mind to it.

That said...

I'll take it line by line.

"The issue is not whether or not slate has internal resonances, but whether or not slate can draw away and kill noise from the 'table as effectively as a wooden plinth, and even if so, without recourse to extremely expensive/time-consuming procedures."

I placed a Litman pediatric stethoscope directly on slate within one centimeter of a mounted motor, and heard no noise. Try that with wood.

"Slate may have no internal resonances (I'll find out), but it is the metal of the top-plate - regular or Reinderspeter - vibrating against the slate, a hard surface - which will cause noise/resonances in the metal itself, without being drawn away, to cause problems."

Everything in the physical world has resonances of some sort. Whether one would hear noise from a top plate would depend entirely upon the construction techniques used, or lack thereof. Wood is much more problematic in that regard, as many know.

"There are no perfect surfaces. Imagine metal hitting wood: you get a dull thud. Imagine metal hitting stone: it sets up a high-frequency ringing."

How is relevant in any context applicable to turntable construction? It isn't. "Direct Coupling" should handle that hurdle, right? LOL

"Which is why I referred earlier to the ceramic ball phenomenon: an extremely hard material (harder than metal), which seemed like a good idea, but which in the end fabricated the illusion of increased detail rather than its reality (the metal-to-ceramic created a disparate-material barrier which filtered out the bass frequencies in order to unnaturally highlight midrange and high frequencies)."

This is totally application dependent, and apples and oranges when used in a discussion about slate. There is no correlation at all. Further, it simply is not true. What it may do is emphasize the inadequacies of a given platter, or other component, or not. More likely is that the surfaces are incompatible due to lack of research of the builder. Ceramics are designed to run on certain surfaces, but not all. Google is your friend on this point.

mosin