Need vintage idler drive help.

Johnnantais, I really appreciate your concern over my pile of troubles! You and Jeff Day are actually the cause of my plight, after reading Jeff's 6moons article and the never ending Lenco post here on Audiogon I started poking around to see what exactly was out there in the rim drive arena. I have to say that there are some exceptional examples represented all over the net. The Analog Dept. has some of the finest I've seen with Wolfgang Loos grey grease bearing 301 probably being my favorite.

That's pretty much what I have in mind for my project, I have a plan for the little darlin and I want it to be the center of an all tube based vinyl rig. I have a couple of tonearms, a Sonus Formula IV and an early Black Widow, one of which will wind up on this rig. That is if I can ever find some documentation!

It's rather frustrating as I found a Russco transcription table and it took all of about three minutes to find a manual for that.

It amazes me that something that was built in New York here stateside and still such a lack of information. At least any that I've found so far.

So again my plea, can someone help a guy out? Once I'm ready to actually start on the project I'm sure I can figure out the mechanics, it's really not all that complicated but, as with most things mechanical there are easy ways to do things and then there's the other and parts are not going to be any easier to find than manuals I'm sure so I'd really like to do things by the "book" if you will.

Johnantais, I'd like to here your thoughts and findings on plinth construction. Not so much the technical aspect but more the material. I understand the physics regarding mass absorbing vibrations but what I'd like more input on is the voodoo around the actual material used to make the plinth.

Shindo states after years of trial and error they've settled on a solid cherry plinth. Jeff Day with Terry Cain's help used a much thinner maple plinth. In the 6moons article, some of the emailed in pictures of other Garrard aficionados had plinths made of ebony, granite, etc. And of course they all report excellent sound... The only real constant I've heard is that mdf tends to deaden the sound. Living in Florida and having worked a fair bit with wood, I'm leaning more to the built up zero void baltic birch ply strictly from a stability standpoint. With the amount of moisture in the air, even with a/c I think it would be the most stable with maybe the exception of teak and that particular wood scares me as I believe it could easy impart a "dead" sound.

Thoughts?