Who is building a turntable?

UPDATE: An adventurous chap down in Texas was the lucky recipient of the turntable parts listed below. Hopefully he'll be able to do something with all of it and report back!

What's that? You're building a frankenstein turntable? You need some innards? Snap! I have some. I just tore apart a Numark TT200, and would like to give someone the guts. I bought it used from some dude online because I needed the tonearm, but the rest has just been sitting here. I also stole the feet for my Vestax PDX-2000 foot mod, so I can't give you those. Anyways, here are some pics of what I have to offer:

A platter (shit, this thing costs flipping $50 through Numark, how about I sell it to you for free?)

The power transformer, power switch, back panel (with RCA inputs) and some other board (they don't even sell these gems on the Numark website -- well, the power transformer they do). Does zero dollars sound reasonable?

Here are the pitch slider and the bpm button modules. I even have the microscopic screws that hold them in place.

You're going to need start/stop/reverse buttons -- I got you.

Here is the control assembly board. Somehow it doesn't match the replacement found on the Numark site for this turntable, but this is what was in mine. Yeah, I cut one of the ground wires in the middle -- just fix that shit.

Finally, you probably want some spinning thing to put the platter on. Here's the motor assembly ($125 on Numark's website). Again, I'm not sure how well any of this stuff works, so I'll give it to you for free.

So that's it. Post a comment if you want to claim this stuff. I would just ask that you pay shipping.

Wooden Flight Case for a Stanton SK-2F

I was back in Wisconsin and Minnesota visiting family and friends (even got to see Acktacular!) during most of the month of January. One project that I worked on with my dad was building a flight case for my Stanton SK-2F DJ mixer. We built it out of unfinished pine to match the turntable flight cases he and I built a few years back. Here are some pictures:

No more toting this bad boy around in the original box I bought it in. That shit was pretty destroyed.

Fixing Broken Vestax PDX-2000 Feet (Part II, sort of)

In our last post, we showed you a way to use cheaper (and superior) Numark feet to replace your (inevitably) broken Vestax PDX-2000 foot or feet. Hopefully that's helped a few folks out.

Now we're going to show you a (rudimentary) way to possibly salvage those old Vestax feet (maybe we should have done this one first to save you a few bucks -- sorry). You'll need a gas stovetop/torch/serious lighter/flamethrower, a sweet pair of pliers and the parts listed below. Okay, enough talk, here we go.

*Disclaimer: take your PDX-2000 apart at your own risk. It's simple, but I'm not a certified Vestax repair herb, so be careful. Always make sure your turntable is unplugged before opening it up.

First off, you probably hear some rattling around inside of your table if you have a broken foot (or feet). That's probably just the broken end of the plastic bolt or nut that Vestax used. Yeah -- bullshit. Take off the bottom plate of your turntable. It's easy -- no pictures needed.

Take a look around and assess the situation. Are all of the feet broken, or just a couple? Count it out. Next, take a look at the feet to see where they are broken. Hopefully, the foot itself (i.e. black plastic and roundish black rubber blob insert are still intact. Most likely, the white plastic bolt snapped off. If you're lucky, it snapped at, or above the black rubber blob; like where the arrow is pointing below (ignore the metal bolt sticking out in the picture -- we're not there yet):

For this fix to work, you really need to have some white plastic inside of that black rubber blob. If you don't have any, you can stop reading this post and go to the Numark foot fix (however, you'll need to replace all four feet in order for your turntable to sit level).

Okay, assuming you have some white plastic showing, it's time to get some supplies. For each of the broken feet you have, you'll need the following: + one 1/4"-20 x 2" hanger bolt (it can be a little less than 2" long if you can find it) -- the "20" represents the number of threads per inch. As you can see in the picture, a hanger bolt has two threaded ends. One end is a wood screw, and the other will accept a nut (machine thread) -- this is key ($.31).
+ one 1/4" inner diameter and 1 1/4" outer diameter rubber neoprene washer ($.47) +one 1/4" inner diameter, 5/8" outer diameter, 3/8" height nylon spacer ($.45) +one 1/4" split lock washer ($.16)
+one 1/4" metal nut (to screw onto the metal bolt end of the hanger bolt above) ($.10)
I got all of these goods at the local hardware store. Next, rush home in excitement -- you're about to fix this shit. Bust down your door and crank on one of your stovetop burners (or torch) to high. Grab the first broken foot and set it next to the stove. Take that sweet pair of pliers and use them to firmly grab the machine thread end of the hanger bolt and hold the wood screw end over the hot flame for a while. The hotter, the better.
Once it's good and hot, screw the wood screw end directly into the center of the white plastic of the broken foot. Note: try to do this relatively quickly as the bolt won't stay hot enough to melt the plastic for long. Also, the black rubber blob is only attached to the rest of the black plastic foot with some kind of adhesive. If you turn the bolt too hard when it isn't hot enough, it will tear the black rubber blob from the plastic foot (at which point it's pretty tricky to undo your work and start over). Obviously, you don't want the screw to come out the bottom of the foot, but I haven't had that happen yet.
With a 2" long screw, I try to get the entire wood screw end buried inside of the white plastic. When you're finished, it should look something like this:
Okay, if yours looks like this (and nothing broke), then the hard part is over. From here, it's just a matter of assembly. Take the base of the turntable, and put the newly "assembled" foot up through the bottom. Place the rubber/neoprene washer over the top, then the nylon spacer on top of that, then the speed lock washer on top of the spacer and finally the metal nut on the end of the hanger bolt. Tighten with a wrench, and it should look like this:
Here's another view:
Do the same for the other busted feet, and then reattach the base of the turntable. Plug it in and cut it up. I haven't toured with this turntable (in fact, it hasn't even left my apartment), but it seems pretty sturdy. I don't really know what's inside of the black rubber blob (it's some sort of rubbery filler that's similar to those old disgusting sticky things that you could throw against the wall and they'd stick or "crawl" down the wall).

One possible improvement: you could probably wear some type of breathing apparatus if you don't like the smell of burning rubber.

New Feet for a Busted Vestax PDX-2000

I recently bought two broken Vestax PDX-2000s thinking that I could frankenstein together one working turntable. This was a success. Earlier this year when I did the same thing with some Numark turntables, I found myself left with a bunch of spare parts.

The PDX-2000 (at least the original) has issues with its feet. Not only did Vestax use a plastic "bolt" (which breaks for many of its users), but they go ahead and add insult to injury by charging ~$30 per foot for new ones. Not upgraded, diesel ones, just new crappy ones that can break again. So I needed to find an alternate. Looking through the turntable parts I had sitting around, I noticed how simple and sturdy the Numark feet are. Also, you can get them online for about $6 each. So, I wanted to find a simple way to use the Numark feet (these were from the cheap TT-200, but are also found on the TT-500 and TTX). In digging through the local hardware store, I found a simple solution that costs all of $3.00 total -- the plain steel flat-type speed nut. See pictures below.

*Disclaimer: take your PDX-2000 apart at your own risk. It's simple, but I'm not a certified Vestax repair fella, so be careful. Definitely make sure your turntable is unplugged before opening it up.

First, remove the base of the turntable. I'm not going to show any pictures because it's just a matter of removing a bunch of screws.

About $.30 - .40 each at your local hardware store. Get 8 of them.



Screw one of the speed nuts all the way onto the foot (bowed upwards).

Now take that foot and place the bolt through one of the four foot holes in the base of the turntable. Screw on a second speed nut (bowed downwards) until it gets snug. Don't overtighten it, because a) it's not necessary, and b) since the bolt on the Numark feet is so short, there's almost no clearance between the "bubble" in the base of the PDX-2000 and the surface it rests on (mine has between 1/8" and 1/4").

Here's a picture of both speed nuts clamping down on each other with the base plate in between.

You can kind of get a feel for the clearance between the "bubble" in the base of the PDX and the surface it rests on in the picture above -- not very much.

Then, re-attach the base to the top portion of the turntable and you're set to go. Mine only gets used in the studio, so I don't need a super robust solution, but you could add Loctite to the speed nuts if you wanted them to stay in place more permanently.