So, much though I’d’ve quite liked to build the deck today, I’m lacking in the magic tool (which I’ve been putting off buying) for disassembling pallets in super quick time. Also, I’m missing a large stack of pallets, some concrete to erect pillars, and pillars. Oh, and a few other bits and pieces.
In the mean time I decided to work on the other deck.
So I picked up a faulty Goldring Lenco GL-68 deck with the intention of using it for the Dead Bug Jumping podcast. It was a ‘sold as seen’ object – which I somewhat optimistically hoped would be in working order when it arrived. It wasn’t. The idler slipped like mad, the turntable struggled to rotate and it turned out the head-slide was knackered.
Indeed, really, the tonearm as a whole is in pretty poor shape.
But with John’s help, the deck was got turning happily again (lubricating a ‘no-need to lubricate, ever’ bearing and cleaning the idler wheel off with alcohol was the key). However, while it was in pieces it became apparent that it was electrically rather dodgy, with no earth cable at all (so any earthing would be happening through the ground of the audio cable).
Today, after the new cartridge arrived (which I know is a fairly cheap cartridge, but the range of companies that offer 78 styli is not huge) I set to on the numerous minor jobs required to fix it. First up was the headslide that carries the cartridge and stylus.
That line of jauntily random contacts is meant to make contact with a row of four small contacts inside the headshell. However, these had obviously long ago failed, and had been replaced with this manky affair:
To make matters more complex, the screws that hold the cartridge to the headslide were too long for the new cartridge.
That was relatively easy, ‘new’ screws from my dad’s magic box of screws.
The contacts, well… I didn’t end up fixing them, because to restore the contacts within the headshell is beyond my ken. Instead I spent a lot of time cleaning up the cable connectors, and replaced the cables within the headshell with some rather finer, actually intended for audio cables.
Beyond the internals of the deck’s wiring, the audio output cables left something to be desired:
They were replaced, as indeed was the cable. The mains lead was switched out for some rather nice cloth-covered three core (courtesy of the iron) and the 13A fuse that, it turned out, was in the deck’s plug was replaced too. After a bit of playing with the balance on the tonearm (John! Can I borrow your stylus balance?) and some dinking with software on the laptop, we achieved success.
Audio reproduction is go!
And the evidence is here for all to hear ;)
