IKEA LAGAN Turntable Plinth

IKEA sells a range of hardwood counter top available in a variety of materials. I managed to get the beech wood LAGAN series (at least in my country – Singapore) and had it cut up for making of a turntable plinth.

Vintage turntables were sold with flimsy plinths and some even encouraged buyers to build their own. The Lenco is a well designed Swiss made turntable that suffered from one such flimsy plinth. There’s a lot written out there about Lencos and how the sound can be improved with a heftier plinth. This project is details construction of a plinth using the IKEA LAGAN. The end result is shown below.

Life starts as Lagan hardwood counter top from IKEA.

It’s then loving cut up. 😉

The best cuts are chosen for making the plinth.

The cut out is then traced using carbon paper onto the top layer. This cut out would be different for different models of turntable. The below cut out is specific for the Lenco PTP project. More information on the PTP project can be found here.

Next comes cutting up the required parts.

And continue with layers 2 and 3.

Overlay the actual metal pieces as guides for drilling holes. These holes are meant for attaching e-nuts that can be screwed down.

Screwing in the e-nuts. The metal e-nuts are screwed into the drilled holes.

Next, mark out the tone arm mount point. This depends on your tone arm details and can be found as the pivot to spindle distance. It varies depending on the arm length. So, if you are using a 12″ arm, make sure your plinth dimensions can cater for this.

Then comes cutting the hole for layers 2 and 3. Mark out with the first layer on top, and use a pencil to outline. I used a larger hole for these layers as i need to be able to screw down the nut that holds the arm.

Then glue down all layers, using clamps to hold the work piece overnight.

Sand down the edges to get it as even as you can. It’s tough work here…

Apply a finishing layer. In my case, i chose to use an epoxy resin called Crystal Sheen. Depending on what’s available in your locale, you may have something different. But an epoxy resin can give you very nice results and one coat is as good as 50 coats of varnish.

Mounting the parts onto the plinth.

Playing music in the rig!