Presto J-5 Motor Mounts?

This is where record cutters raise questions about cutting, and trade wisdom and experiment results. We love Scully, Neumann, Presto, & Rek-O-Kut lathes and Wilcox-Gay Recordios (among others). We are excited by the various modern pro and semi-pro systems, too, in production and development. We use strange, extinct disc-based dictation machines. And other stuff, too.

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timinbovey
Posts: 50
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2017 11:31 am

Presto J-5 Motor Mounts?

Post: # 47663Unread post timinbovey
Mon Aug 28, 2017 5:39 pm

I'm just getting into the "restoration" of a Presto J-5. It's a decent and complete machine but it's been sitting for years and years. As I work my way through the mechanicals, I've noticed quite a bit of motor noise being transferred to the motorboard.

Figured the motor mounts must be hard, so I removed one to investigate. What the heck are these made out of? This is either petrified white rubber or wood. Seriously, it seems like a white piece of wood with a washer on either end. Clearly, they're what's been in it for 80 years, but what to replace them with? Rubber? I don't suppose there's anyone reproducing Presto motor mounts? Maybe these are wood and they had rubber washers on the ends that are now hard and flattened? I'm really perplexed!

Is this even the right place to post this question? I'm a new guy around here.

Tim in Bovey

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rsimms3
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Joined: Thu Mar 14, 2013 10:01 am

Re: Presto J-5 Motor Mounts?

Post: # 47665Unread post rsimms3
Mon Aug 28, 2017 6:39 pm

They were rubber and described as such in the instruction manual. I've found the rubber rollers in printers to be of a similar size/shape/compression characteristics to the original motor mounts. The quality of the rubber on your platter also makes a difference. If it's hardened or has flat spots you get increased rumble.

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timinbovey
Posts: 50
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2017 11:31 am

Re: Presto J-5 Motor Mounts?

Post: # 47788Unread post timinbovey
Sat Sep 09, 2017 4:14 pm

Thought I'd add a follow up.

I was able to recreate the motor mounts using fuel line. I had done this years ago for some other record player.

I did indeed determine the original were indeed rubber, they were THAT hard that I couldn't determine what they were. Squishing them with a pliers I was able to see they were rubber.
And the white color was from aging. They're black inside.

We have one of those old fashioned hardware stores with a "basement" and guys that will you help create what you need. We found rubber fuel line that was the same diameter as the
mounts. And it was certainly more compressible than what I had left of the originals. Trouble is, the inside diameter of the fuel line was much larger than the mounting bolts for the motor
so I was worried it would allow the motor to shift about, etc. Scrounging through their collection of rubber hose we found a size that would fit inside the larger line with some coaxing, and the
inner diameter was just the right size for the motor bolts. So I jammed the shorter line into the larger about half an inch, cut it off, trimmed to length that matched the originals, and after doing
4 times I had four motor mounts that fit perfectly and reduced the vibration from the motor to the motorboard dramatically. I still suspect the originals, when new, were probably a bit more
resilient, but for now it seems to be working well. Total cost about two bucks! And enough left over to make about 8 more sets, LOL.

Tim in Bovey

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