Hi Thom.
This subject comes up once in a while. Your suggestion of turning down the spindle pin a few thou makes sense, providing one has access to a machinist one trusts not to mangle the part, or to the machine shop for self use.
Just to re-acquaint myself I measured a sample of three Thorens spindle pins that were at hand. My measured range of size is .2820 - .2830 (inches)in that sample. And those can be problematic with some Lps.
Then, for comparison, I measured a spindle pin off my Teres. It read .2805. And I don't recall encountering any tight fitting Lps over the Teres.
So the difference between too tight and ok is a matter of .002 - .0025 inches.
Not that any of this solves the problem, unless one is designing a turntable.
Agree, Thorens' position on holding to the RIAA tolerance of size made no sense.
But then this is also the company that equipped its TD125 and earlier models with 16-2/3rds rpm. And the TD125 only had 3 speeds. Most folks would have preferred that the TD125 use its third speed for 78s. My guess; someone in upper mgmt liked to listen to transcription discs and possibly those "talking book" discs that never quite caught on.
For myself, I just use a pencil to ream out tight spindle holes. And when this doesn't quite work, I'll use an X-acto knife -- with good lighting, to carefully trim the high areas out of the spindle hole without altering its core size.
-Steve
This subject comes up once in a while. Your suggestion of turning down the spindle pin a few thou makes sense, providing one has access to a machinist one trusts not to mangle the part, or to the machine shop for self use.
Just to re-acquaint myself I measured a sample of three Thorens spindle pins that were at hand. My measured range of size is .2820 - .2830 (inches)in that sample. And those can be problematic with some Lps.
Then, for comparison, I measured a spindle pin off my Teres. It read .2805. And I don't recall encountering any tight fitting Lps over the Teres.
So the difference between too tight and ok is a matter of .002 - .0025 inches.
Not that any of this solves the problem, unless one is designing a turntable.
Agree, Thorens' position on holding to the RIAA tolerance of size made no sense.
But then this is also the company that equipped its TD125 and earlier models with 16-2/3rds rpm. And the TD125 only had 3 speeds. Most folks would have preferred that the TD125 use its third speed for 78s. My guess; someone in upper mgmt liked to listen to transcription discs and possibly those "talking book" discs that never quite caught on.
For myself, I just use a pencil to ream out tight spindle holes. And when this doesn't quite work, I'll use an X-acto knife -- with good lighting, to carefully trim the high areas out of the spindle hole without altering its core size.
-Steve