Technics 12010 MK2 Refurbish Build Log

karlbreen

Reason for posting this is I haven't seen a single Technics refurbishment thread from someone in Ireland. I just want to show how I managed to do it and what companies I contacted along the way.

Just a little background on how I got this deck. I DJ in a local nightclub 2 nights a week and during a conversation with management I was told that there was possibly two Technics upstairs in an un-used part of the club. This part of the club is now used as storage for anything and everything that needs to be out of the way. After a look around I find one deck all by itself.

It was covered in plaster dust or something like that. Took it home and gave it a once over the next morning. Paint was very bad, cracked/peeling on the rear corners and lifting in a few spots. Wired a plug to the end and plugged it in.

It worked first time! Red strobe came on and spun like new! Everything electrical and mechanical was working. Even cleaned it up a bit to put a cartridge on and a vinyl, all was perfect! Only two things broken was the stylus lamp bulb and the tone arm rest.

With the paint in such a bad way the only option was a full respray. I stripped all the components off the faceplate. Found a very helpful guy by the name of Viperfrank on youtube who has a full tutorial on this. /watch?v=CDYgjwdQ55s No surprises inside the unit all was working fine. The tone arm mount and base was very bad in terms of paint so that had to be disassembled.

As it stands now I have it all disassembled and sorted. Cannot state enough how helpful it is to have all the screws bagged and labeled. I used a component box I got in college to keep everything together while working on this. I have ordered a new tone arm piece and pitch range faceplate (original removed so I can get full paint coverage) from Juno Records as they were the closest supplier that I could rely on. I know theres a tonne on ebay but I'd rather stick with a genuine site.


Right now I have a few plans for the deck:
-Respray faceplate glossy white
-Respray tone arm hinges black
-Replace stylus lamp bulb with LED
-Speed selection and Pitch zero LED upgrade to White
-Replace audio cables

Unfortunately as I'm a new user I cannot include images in the post so ill just link here to the Flickr folder until I can post properly
flickr. com /photos/karlbreen/albums/72157660795389660

Mickb

Hi,

Looks good.

Will be interested to see how it all finishes up.
Will you be posting more pictures at:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/karlbreen/sets/72157660795389660

MiCk B. :-)

karlbreen

Mickb wrote: »

Hi,

Looks good.

Will be interested to see how it all finishes up.
Will you be posting more pictures at:


MiCk B. :-)

Yes any progress on the project I'll try get photos and have them uploaded

karlbreen

Also only spotted now the title says 12010.....

1210 I meant

karlbreen

Began work on getting the paint removed from the faceplate, platter and tone arm mount.

I bought Nitromors paint remover. Focused mainly on the faceplate. First try just dried up and only had small amounts of blistering on the paint. (I followed the instructions exactly, I'm not covering this in any great detail) Removed the dried up residue and then gave the whole face a quick sanding to break up the layer of paint. This worked a treat for the 2nd try I had the paint blistering right away. After a while I went at it with a scraper blade and had the flat portion of the faceplate back to bare metal.

It was harder to remove the paint in the centre portion as the surface has too many obstacles and curves for the blade. Tried the same remover on the platter and had no luck at all! Tone arm mounts were too small to try. Check out the flickr album linked above by Mickb I've added photos of the paint removal to it.

I'm going to look into getting all the parts lightly sand blasted. This would be much quicker and do a better job getting those awkward places.

Found a helpful site for info on the job of painting a deck
technics1200s .com/index.php?p=1_32_Paint

karlbreen

New year, new post
(And hopefully a new deck soon!)

Just an update on progress. I had received the parts from Juno Records about a week after I placed my order. The pitch slider faceplate came with adhesive foam already attached.

I dissasembled the tone arm base to separate the metal components out for sandblasting. This wasn't as daunting a task as I thought it would be. I was worried there would be gears and parts everywhere but it was very modular inside. All that had to be done was the tone arm wires had to be desoldered. I took a photo of them before disconnecting to use later when reassembling.

I previously worked at JFD Engineering so I knew that they had sandblasting equipment. I left the tone arm parts, face plate and plater into them over christmas as a low priority job. They got in touch to say they were very busy with work so they offered for me to come in and do the work myself. So after my college exams are over I'll be in to do that. Got a GoPro for the birthday so I'll be sure to get a few clips and photos.

Once the parts are back to bare metal we can move onto paint.

karlbreen

Base plate and tone arm assembly are now back to bare metal. Flickr album has been updated with photos of the new parts.

Still need to get in touch with a local body shop and see if they can get these painted.

karlbreen

The Easter Break has been very productive!

The faceplate and platter are finally painted. I dropped them off to AJK motors in Rush. I decided I'd have a crack at the tone arm section myself. I originally wanted a Volkswagen white but after a chat with John he recommended a Ford 'Frozen White' as he had a batch of it ready to go and it requires less layers than the Volkswagen so I settled on that since you wouldn't know the difference unless you were comparing them side by side. AJK were very friendly, helpful and much quicker than expected!

I collected it today and got to work reassembling everything. The zip lock bags with all the labels paid off big time. I picked up two white LEDs from Maplin today (Part #: N66KG) these are to replace the red LEDs under the speed selection buttons. These are very bright so I dulled the top with some sand paper.

I've decided to paint the tone arm base and mounts white but keeping the adjustment ring its original black. Those should be finished by the end of this week when I get the spray paint the same code as the colour AJK used.
This page i found has documented a few restorations and I found one example that I really liked so mine is going to be along the lines of this one. works1200.weebly. com /saved-from-the-fire.html
(still cannot post links at this stage...)

After everything is painted and almost back together then I will work on the new RCA cables and looking into the LED upgrade for the stylus lamp. I've seen a few people online have added a ground line to the mains socket instead of having to connect a wire to a mixer. I'll have a look around and see if its worth it.

I have added a few photos from todays work to the Flickr album to show how its going along.
flickr. com /photos/karlbreen/albums/72157660795389660

karlbreen

Sorry for the lack of posts college got in the way and then I'm currently on a J1 till August.

So I got the turntable back together and it works perfectly. Was really worried about the tonearm assembly and soldering but there was no problem at all. Again viperfranks youtube videos were very helpful. Didn't get any photos of it operational but I'll get them up on the flickr album when I'm home.

Few minor things to do now but other than that its operational. I tried my had at mixing from CDJ's to vinyl which was a lot harder than expected. Never knew how much of a lifesaver the CUE button on the CDJs are.

Anyway I'll keep this updated with anything I do to it!