Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Garrard 301 Motor restauration
I have posted a detailed restauration guide of the Garrard 301 here on my website. It is in German, but has many photos, so it might even help if you do not understand German.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Restoring a 301 non-strobe platter
When my Garrard 301 arrived, it was in a quite poor condition, but I was aware of that. As my time is limited in the moment, but I wanted to work on it, I decided to restore the platter first, as that seemed to be an easy task. But I was wrong. It turned out to become a real time-consuming task. First I stripped the black paint off, as the platter was resprayed in an unprofessional way. So far the easy part. The platter looked like this after the paint was off:
And from the reverse side:
The remaining spots where not paint. The platter was corroded under the paint. And at this point the nightmare started. I tried various metal polishes, lots of elbow grease. Nothing helped, the platter got better, looked shinier, but the countless spots remained.
As I didn't have too much time, the platter went to the storage in the cellar, a week or so later I started to polish again. That procedure repeated several times.
One weekend I did another search on Google: "aluminum cleaning". Various tips and recipes turned up. Like using a mixture of salt and vinegar to polish. Serious.
One of the recipes was using lemon juice. I gave it a try, like the salt and vinegar thing before. I realized that at least something was happening. But not enough. In my desperation I tried a few things in combination with lemon. What worked finally, was the following:
And from the reverse side:
The remaining spots where not paint. The platter was corroded under the paint. And at this point the nightmare started. I tried various metal polishes, lots of elbow grease. Nothing helped, the platter got better, looked shinier, but the countless spots remained.
As I didn't have too much time, the platter went to the storage in the cellar, a week or so later I started to polish again. That procedure repeated several times.
One weekend I did another search on Google: "aluminum cleaning". Various tips and recipes turned up. Like using a mixture of salt and vinegar to polish. Serious.
One of the recipes was using lemon juice. I gave it a try, like the salt and vinegar thing before. I realized that at least something was happening. But not enough. In my desperation I tried a few things in combination with lemon. What worked finally, was the following:
Starting position
Rubbing the platter with a lemon half for a couple of seconds
results in this
Now use a brass brush and loosen the corrosion:
Which looks like this then, as a result:
Don't try to weep the platter clean now, as the lemon juice is too dry and you'll just rub the loosened corrosion back into the metal. Use the lemon again for a few seconds
and then quickly wipe the juice and the corrosion off with a clean piece of cloth
which gave me this result
Amazing, isn't it? It took me about 2 hours to polish the platter to as new condition.
results in this
Now use a brass brush and loosen the corrosion:
Which looks like this then, as a result:
Don't try to weep the platter clean now, as the lemon juice is too dry and you'll just rub the loosened corrosion back into the metal. Use the lemon again for a few seconds
and then quickly wipe the juice and the corrosion off with a clean piece of cloth
which gave me this result
Amazing, isn't it? It took me about 2 hours to polish the platter to as new condition.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Saturday, June 28, 2008
The Analag Dept. has a nice photo-gallery on Garrard 301 and 401. Here is the address:
http://www.theanalogdept.com/garrard_gallery.htm
http://www.theanalogdept.com/garrard_gallery.htm
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Tired of all the Thorens? Have a look at this beauty! A Russco Studio Pro from 1972 restored by analogforum member groovemaster: http://www.analog-forum.de/wbboard/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=31782
There is a very nice photo story with various images about the restauration of a 401 on the commercial site of Musik Keller Hifi: http://www.hifi-brueckner.de/restaurierung/gallery.php
Photos show the 401 from different angles and perspectives. Nice.
Photos show the 401 from different angles and perspectives. Nice.
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