Helped needed for plinth suggestions

I was going to have a plinth made for me from slate, this was to be circular with seperate pods for motor and arm.
The plinth i wanted was to be 250mm dia by 55mm thick.
After waiting 5 months for the slate and being told last week i would have it on monday last, i have told em to stuff it.

So i need help now on a rethink of what material to use.
or if anyone knows a reliable slate worker that could produce a nice circular piece then please let me know.

 

why not go to a monumental mason and get some granite?

maybe they would also have the tools to work on slate?


just an idea

 

damn expensive im afraid.
The slate was direct from a quarry works and so much cheaper.

 

Indeed it appears to have cost you nothing

 

why not try concrete. especially if you mix in bits of different materials. damn sure it'd have no single resonant frequency then. bits of wood, cork, stones, mouse mat etc. all at random. also yu could cast it into whatever funky shape you wanted then too. imagine a marge shaped deck......
cheers



julian

 

Have you tried kitchen shops? They have suppliers who cut granite to fit all sorts of sinks/taps etc. Don't ask MFI unless you want a laugh. All the bespoke shops should be in a position to help. Granite seems to be anything from £200 a metre upwards although I expect this will be plus the cutting out.

Rod

 

You know what Julian, that is a pretty damn fine sounding idea, i think ill look into that. Not sure how i would get a smooth finish on it, but worth a try.

 

Just to point out, i dont want granite

 

there is a lot of marble at your local cemetary. best if you use it letter side down.











joke btw

 

Easy. Build your mould upside-down, line it with your desired finish texture - formica comes to mind for a super-smooth finish. Make up a small quantity of a rich mix mortar (cement and sand, 1:2 ish) and trowel all the mould surfaces. Give it an hour or three, the cast your main mix inside the no-lumps shell. Watered-down PVA adhesive makes a brilliant bonding agent if you let the shell actually set overnight.

It's easy to pigment the concrete, or for such a small quantity spring for white cement (and silica sand) to give a pristine B&O finish

FIbres (plastic or glass) work really well for reinforcing concrete - and plaster - do a websearch for GRG (Glass-reinforced gypsum). Actually, I'd give serious consideration to doing the plinth out of plaster rather than concrete - not much in it density-wise, and plaster is much nicer to work with (nowhere near as caustic as concrete)

Lots to play with.

 

sounding good

Ok so i line the mould and put a skim in it, the PVA, is that brushed over the set skim layer before putting the rest of the mix in?

Thanks for the advice Felix

 

An alternative would be to use Corian. This is a non-resonant acrylic, generally 12.5mm thick and is easily machined. You could fix a number of pieces together to give you the thickness that you need. Alternating Corian with MDF or ply layers would give an even less resonant structure.

Again, a manufacturer of kitchen units could supply you.

 

A second vote for Corian. It forms my turntables plinths and that sounds good soooooo ....

Cheers

Jason

 

Corian looks tempting aswell.
Maybe a corian/hardwood sandwich...

 

Yum, yum.

Please let us know which way you go and how it works.

 

well, im thinking maybe cocobola - corian - cocbola sandiwch.
Still useing the round plinth idea, maybe corian of around 50mm think and covered top and bottom with cocobola of around 15mm.

I cant find anywhere that wants to sell me corian offcuts, only full worktops. Ill keep looking.
As i can work it myself it helps save the pennies aswell.

 

Can I pose the obvious question… Why do you want a high mass plinth?

IMHO very high mass plinth systems are seldom successful, well putting it another way I very seldom like decks built this way, they tend to sound sluggish. Take a Garrard 301/401 motor unit as an example – they work better in say a Lorricraft plinth than one made out of solid slate. Despite the Lorricraft looking incredibly solid, it actually has a MDF 'top-plate' that is decoupled from the actual plinth.

I really rate the Nottingham Analogue range of decks (I now have a Spacedeck), and whilst they are ultra-high mass regarding their platters, the underlying deck is pretty low mass. The Spacedeck and Hyperspace 'plinth' is a 1†thick circular slab of MDF supported by three metal 'pods' with soft rubber feet. This construction combines huge rotational stability with low energy storage from the 'plinth'. Another huge advantage of this construction is that the 'pod' that the arm is mounted on is adjustable in position relative to the deck making aligning different arms simplicity itself – a truly superb bit of lateral thinking from Mr Fletcher. Were I designing a deck this would be my starting point – it is simple, superbly logical and really delivers the goods.

What platter and drive system are you using?

Tony.

 

Hi Tony

The platter is 80mm acrylic, inverted bearing, PLL motor. All supplied by Scheu in Germany.

 

Been contacted by the slay
te place, apparently my slate WILL delivered this week (not holding my breath though).
So if that happens i will go with that and possibly use hard wood top and bottom.

 

marble letter side down helps to 'plum the depths' of bass output.
and 'digs deep into the music'.