2016-07 Concrete Record Player.

The Dual turntable needs somewhere to live. I decided to make this a test of the process for my ideal record plinth.
The Concrete Record Player (plinth.)

The process: Make a mold and fill it with concrete

The mount points for the turntable are precise and too thin for concrete so I made a frame of plywood to be embedded in the plinth the the turntable will rest on and mount to. I made two and laminated them together for strength and the depth needed for the turntable spring support cups.

The frame mounted on the top of the mold with the turntable cutout under it. The frame protrudes and that will keep it embedded in the concrete. Here I am packing out the interior with packing foam and masking tape to keep the void in the middle empty.

The mold with the sides on and some dowels for the mains and audio cables. I didn't want to risk cracking the plinth by drilling these out after it had set. The first  concrete is in and you can see the wire squares I added into the concrete hoping it will strengthen the final block.

2016-06 Dual 1214 turntable restoration.

I want a better 78 player and found this turntable in a 3-N-1 stereo for $10. At that price it didn't matter if it was a no go. Looks like there had been some water damage and some missing bits but not too bad.
The motor did not spin freely which was a very bad sign so I worked on that first. The bottom of that armature was locked into the brass ball that acts as a bearing and guide. It was riveted into a support bracket that I destroyed before I realized I could possibly have disassembled it on account of one of the parts being so frozen I thought the two parts one.

(a bad first attempt that involved dental floss).

Hacked up a replacement bracket from a tip-top ice-cream lid and that worked really well .
Reassembled and the motor ran reliably and quietly but the speed selection, disk size and return were all faulty.

A good clean section by section, some small adjustments and I got all these working.
 
 Gave it a run (after using a magnifying glass and tweezers to straighten the stylus) and it sounded great. I had no suspicion that 78s could sound so good.
And I found the auto-change spindle lying inside the electronics in the case in the old 3 in 1 guts and that seems to work too.

2016-05 Speaker Stands

I've been keeping an eye out for something to use for speaker stands or a good design to build from scratch. I found these slightly odd stools.

They looked like this

Here they are stripped down

I reclaimed the wood from the seats, trimmed it to fit the width of the frames and added some stick n cable clips for the speaker wires.

These speakers have no internal cross overs and I have these that I use with them. Why not mount them on the back of the stands to keep them tidy too?

Like this

 ! For The finished !

(I really don't like blogger's lay-out tools / editor.)

2016-04 Empty the LP Queue

I have about 4 to 5 hundred LPs waiting to be listened to or just to be shelved.
It's getting to me. This month I want to review and shelve them all.
I started a bit late and set 8/day as a goal. Had a cold and took a break then came back reinvigorated and decided on 10/day and 20/day in the weekend.
Then the Rotary Book fair happened and I added 25ish to the Queue. Now I've set myself 15/day and 30/day in the weekend. I might make it.
Here's my progress chart that I keep to enthuse myself:

It went well enough. I've kept on top of things too now that I have better organised shelves with some free space. Next to do are the 45s.

2016-03 Bread

Almost too easy this time: I had wanted to try a bread-maker for a while and found one at a garage sale for $5. It came with books too.
Bought some yeast and had a go at a basic white loaf. It all worked very well. I tried adding some rye meal flower on the next loaf. 1 cup of rye and 2 cups of white flower. A bit dry. This loaf: half a cup of rye and 2.5 cups of white. Very good.

Here's the  machine. It had some small scrapes in the loaf container where the Teflon had been damaged by using a knife to loosen the loaf but it didn't look too bad and tha price and books made it worth a go.

 Nice simple display and controls. The time is a count down and you can set a start delay and the total time for the loaf to be ready is then shown.

 Here's the dough ball being kneaded after the first rising.

Let it cool for 1 minute before tapping it out on a board.	... and it seems to come out quite cleanly.	I eat the end that had the stirring blade in it first.

With some olive oil, sharp cheese, tomato and basil .

2016-01 Book shelf system

It's been on my todo list for a while and books are getting out of control. I have the time over the hols for a big project so here it is.
I really like lundia but I can find it as thin and tall as I want.
I like another particular  type of shelf that has adjustable shelves using an easily available fitting.
I decided to combine the top-bottom shelf lock the uprights idea of lundia with the adjustable shelves.
I also decided to abandon the need for them to be unattached to the wall. They will be too high and thin to stay upright by themselves.

 I added a fixed shelf in the middle as I thought the uprights might bow outward if books were forced in then the shelves would drop off their brackets.

Lots of holes to drill. Measuring and drilling them so that they are right on and clean took the longest time by far. Over 10 hours at a guess.	This a unit frame. I was thinking I might need a X brace and had planned to use wire and turnbuckles. This was just needed to keep the frames intact while handling them into place and  screwing them to the wall. They were more then stable enough to handle so I did dropped that.

Screwing the frame to the wall. That's a complete one to the right of the window.

With the shelves clipped in.	And a double wide set for the bigger stuff.