Two new turntable builds in progress!

I'm excited to announce that I've have begun two new turntable builds.  One is an Acoustic Research (AR) XB which will be given an updated arm, Brazilian cherry frame, a few minor tweaks, and a lot of cleaning.  The other will be a combination of Thorens motor and platter, a custom after-market tonearm, and a nice flamed maple slab I ran across recently.

The XB was in pretty bad shape when I got ahold of it.  I have removed all
of the mechanical and electrical parts and will be thoroughly cleaning
everything before putting it back together.

This image gives a good view of how the XB was originally constructed
from particle board and cheap laminate.  The Brazilian cherry wood will
be a welcome improvement.

The AR XB has a three point suspended sub-chassis which I will be modifying to ride on sorbothane bushings instead of the metal springs.  It will no longer be adjustable, but will retain all of the original vibration dampening and isolation properties.  The weakness of the original XB is that over time the springs wore out and caused the suspension to sag creating an overall "mushy" experience.  The original tonearm is being replaced by a much newer AR tonearm from one of their "The Turntable" models.

I'm really impressed by this wood.  Nice grain and color!
(It's been lightly coated with mineral spirits here to show
off what it can look like when finished.)

Initial frame cutting done.  It looks better already.

The other turntable is a fully custom build that will be very similar to the Thorens TD-316 that I rebuilt last year and use daily.  It will retain the electrical system, motor, and platter from a Thorens TD-150, with custom isolation and dampening, and then be given an Acos Lustre GST-1 tonearm. 

This flamed maple slab is 33"x15"x1" so I'll be able to select
the most attractive 13x16 portion of it for this turntable.

A closeup view of a section of the flamed effect that attracted me to this piece.

I've been waiting for an opportunity to use this arm in a build and am excited about the aesthetics and performance that it will bring to my new turntable.

This photo and the one below are from Audio Andromeda.  Check out their
blog.  It features all kinds of interesting audio gear.
http://audio-andromeda.blogspot.com/2005/06/acos-lustre-gst-1.html

More to come as these two turntables progress.