Restoring my electronic-shop-rescue 1229 was a nightmare. There are parts that have to be made from scratch if they can't be scrounged from other decks. I could never keep the 1229 in tune; the automatic stuff could be thrown out of calibration by simply lifting the deck and carrying it across the room. 😵 The 1229 has a great tonearm, but the rest of the deck is a real dog. I kept looking for ways to disengage the automatic stuff and make the 1229 completely manual, but I never succeeded. I finally decided to give the 1229 to a local audio shop and fall back on my Dual belt-drive, which represents a big improvement over the 1229 from the standpoint of reliability.
Nice clear close ups! One of best I've ever seen. I also had to fabricate a steuerpimple and my 1219 now works good. Didn't use hot glue but interesting for sure.
This turntable allows you to very accurately balance the tonearm, and dial in the exact tracking force recommended for your cartridge. By mounting a dust brush on the head shell, you're changing the tracking force to something between what you set it at and zero. Bad idea. Instead, use a hand held brush to give the record a wipe before you play it, or a brush mounted on its own arm.
In spite of Pickering's instructions, the whole idea of reading a microscopic groove with a stylus depends on letting that stylus rest in the groove with a precise amount of downward pressure, free of any other lateral force or vibration of any kind. A headshell-mounted brush will not just affect tracking force; the brush's fibres will themselves be tracking the grooves, generating skating forces, and transmitting vibration to the headshell as they "read" the grooves. The dust removal and anti-static functions can be achieved just as effectively with a brush mounted independently of the tone arm. Whatever you decide to do, it's good to see that you're taking care of your records. Rock on!
