Drive Belt Quick Fix

[Lenp]

I received a turntable from a friend, so I could 'mess around' with it for him! The unit had a rubberized fabric belt that was worn smooth, and in spite of using a 'rubber restorer', and the tension adjustment, it still slipped. Looking online at the belt suppliers, everything was either too long, or short.

After some thought, I tried this...
Clean the face of the drive belt with a solvent, I used acetone. Lay the belt with the rubber side up, on scrap cardboard then squeeze a bit of ordinary silicon adhesive onto the belt face. Spread it on the belt surface evenly, in as thin a layer as possible. I used the edge of a credit card a squeegee. Clean any silicone from the edges, and let it cure. I repeated this several times building up thin coats. If the belt seemed very worn I guess you could do both sides to help reinforce it.
After the belt cured it worked great, and is still going over a year later.

Magic in a tube!

[CeaSaR]

That's good to know in a pinch.

MCM Electronics sold belts for almost anything (not sure if they still do), and the catalog had a belt gauge along one of the edges where you use standard #2 pencils (Ticonderoga or equiv.) to pull them taught to measure them. You had to subtract something like 10% to account for stretch in aged belts.

-CeaSaR

[Janitor Tzap]

I still got my belt gauge from PRB.
Now Russell Industries; http://russellind.com/downl.htm

Hey Lenp,

There still are Turntable belts available.
Now that Vinyl is making a come back.
You can find replacement belts though; http://www.studiosoundelectronics.com/indexfrm.htm
You just need the brand and model number of the Turntable.

But a lot of places like MatElectronics still carry belts too.
https://www.matelectronics.com/turntable-belts/


Signed: Janitor Tzap