I wasn’t certain how long the Thorens had been left in such a state, but the idler slider pulley was jammed by the gummed lubricant. The Thorens and SME 3012 tonearm dated back to 1962 – I had the tonearm serial number confirmed by SME Engineering that made it 56 years of age back in 2018. As for the plinth, we were looking to purchase it from a specialist in Moldova. The plan was to first address the mechanical gremlins before moving on to the motor and tonearm. After completing the primary assessment, the turntable was partially stripped down for an initial cleaning before work began. Methodically planning a restoration is of paramount importance so that you leave no stone unturned. I had the good fortune to document the restoration process together with Lee. That was, of course, wishful thinking, on hindsight.
Brilliant, I thought, I was going to have a fully functional turntable by the following week. He was given carte blanche mandate to bring it back to life. When I told him about the Thorens back then, he arrived shortly after to pick up the turntable for restoration. BS Lee will solve it for you as he did for me and (fellow reviewer) MK Chong.” Now sadly departed, Lee was one of the prime vintage turntable experts and restorers in Malaysia. “You have a real gem here but nothing works. It was between persevering with the journey or handing the “joy” to someone else to pursue.īeing in the reviewers’ circle helped as fellow reviewer Lim Juan dropped by almost immediately after the news broke and his remark was “ai-yai-yai-yai-yai” when he laid eyes on it. Profanities ran around in my mind when I realised that my restoration dream could be dead in the water as the expert Thorens restorers were in Britain or elsewhere in Europe… so I had to find local talent. It’s between doing it yourself if you are mechanically inclined, and having it professionally restored… the latter can really burn a hole in your pocket.Īs for me, being a bean counter, there was no way I could have done the job myself when that Thorens TD-124 MkI mounted with an SME 3012 tonearm landed on my doorstep in a sorry state, back in November 2018. If you chance upon a vintage idler turntable, there can only be two options should you want to embark on the restoration journey.
Now, it’s time for the truth to be told about the arduous behind-the-scenes tasks for those of you wanting to take this rewarding journey. My previous article was largely about the pleasures of vintage turntable ownership as I am enthralled by their sound.
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