Garrard 401 advice

[david counter]

the position of the arm is Dependant on the spindle to pivot distance of your arm, what arm is it?

[skippingjack]

Yay! I can actually be of some use!

The centre of the arm pillar of Rega arms need to be 222mm from the centre of the platter. Just do a arc with a compass and put a x where you think the arm would look best.

First usefull post!

Alex

[Calorgas]

Brilliant, thanks, that is indeed a very useful post as the arm is an RB300, so a 222mm arc it is!

Getting close to the end now, I reckon this will be up and running by mid-week, can't wait .

[Andy831]

My first post too, But very interested in your thread Calorgas. I seem to be at a similar point to you with my 301. My 401 is just sat languishing in its crappy chipboard plinth awaiting attention tho.

Any chance of posting or emailing some pics of your progress with the plinth.

Andy

[Calorgas]

Hi Andy,

I've got the plinth mostly sorted and have it all running now, and it sounds very good, all quiet and steady, really punchy sound. In retrospect I would have liked to make the plinth bigger so that I could have more options for locating the arm and legs etc, but needed to keep it small (see below).

I haven't finalised the legs/feet yet for a couple of reasons; I made the plinth as small as poss to so that it would fit on my rack, and the holes drilled through it to bolt the deck to it prevent me from using spikes where I want them, and I don't want to permanently attach legs to the plinth in case I want to be able to remove the deck from the plinth - as the legs would cover the holes! Bah! Also I don't have much room above the deck cos I squeezed my rack into an unused hearth, and it's very tight when I put the perspex cover (that I salvaged from the original plinth) over the deck. I might consider dumping the legs completely and sitting the plinth onto a timber or mdf frame one day, as it might make it look a bit neater.

I glued a layer of mdf under the portland stone simply to give it a bit more strength, as it looked a bit wimpy at the edges and I was worried that if I let it drop onto a hard surface whilst moving it around then even a slight impact might be enough to break it - not sure this was really necessary but it doesn't look too bad.

All in all I'm pretty happy so far, and there's plenty of scope for messing around more later, which is good . The main spindle bearing seemed to ooze a tiny little drop of oil during the first couple of trials, but Darren from Slatedeck has advised me of an appropriate gasket sealant to use to sort that, so I'll need to remove that and repeat the spindle service.

See link for pics:
http://s157.photobucket.com/albums/t...Garrard%20401/

Cheers, Dave

[Andy831]

Wow looks really nice Dave I like that a lot. I think the Mdf underneath the main plinth looks good and breaks up the mass of the stone.

Good work Dave

Regards

Andy

[Andy831]

Any chance of sharing the appropriate gasket advise Dave?, as now fully oiled up both my 301 and 401 leak an occasional drop of oil.

I had always assumed that like all British engineered products from the 50`s and 60s (thinking about cars and motorbikes) a drop of oil on the drive was par for the course

[Calorgas]

Sure thing, here's the message from Slatedeck:

"Hi Dave,

We use instant gasket paste. You can find it in Halfords and such.
try to find the grey type, not the red or blue."

Cheers, Dave
(aka la toilette on zerogain)

[Andy831]

Thanks Dave

Andy

aka Andy831 on all the forums