By sharing my progress along a similar path, I'm thinking that I may spark some creative inspiration in you as well;
I bought a solid, good working stock Thorens TD160 MK1 for $200.00 about ten years ago. I would have preferred buying a Lynn Sondek but they were beyond my budget. The Thorens was to become a project towards a dedicated mono table.
I created a 3/4" X 3" tiger maple plinth, using calipers for exact positioning and had the corners mitered at a picture framing shop. I then employed Herbie's Audio washers between the inner plinth and the turntable chassis. I placed dampening material along the turntable's underneath chassis and sub chassis. I replaced the underneath mdf bottom with a 1/4 inch sheet of birch plywood. I stripped to a degree, the TP16 tonearm and rewired it, knowing that eventually it would be replaced. A Herbie's Way Excellent 2 record mat made a gigantic improvement over the stock sorbothane rubber mat. I then installed an AT 33 Mono Anniversary low output cartridge knowing that it too, would eventually be replaced.
My next undertaking in the modification my TD160 will be to replace the stock TP16 tonearm with either an Origin Live Silver or Zephyr tonearm. For my next cartridge, I'm planning to install one of the EMT Mono Cartridges.
It's been a long road for this table but it sounded good from the start and sounds so much better with each improvement along the way. With my ASR Mini Basis Exclusive phono amp, each modification has noticeably impacted the overall sound character. I can say too that its been a fun project.