Maple cutting board as a plinth?

[RobTX]

Would it be feasible to make a plinth from this 3 inch thick maple cutting board that I'm currently using as an isolation platform?



I want to use the PTP6 plate system to put my Bogen B61 internals in the board in the picture. I don't have much of a wood shop but I do have a nice Makita hand held router, a corded drill and medium sized bench-top drill press, a nice new jig saw, and some hole saws/regular drill bits.

I'm mostly wondering:

Is maple an ok material to use for this?
Will the sort of tools I have make the needed holes/cuts etc, in a maple board that is this thick?
If so, what should I do to make the holes for the PTP cutout and tone arm cutout? I figure I could drill 1/2in holes in the corners of the cutout areas then connect them with the jigsaw, or I could buy a long plunge cut bit for the router and make a few passes increasing the depth each time?

If I used the router plunge method I was thinking I could freehand the first cut but in the following plunge cuts would the bit be too prone to catch the walls and break? I've only ever used a router to make decorative edges, haven't done too much pattern/hole cutting. Would a bit like this do what I need or would it just get caught on the walls of the hole on the second or third plunge and wind up breaking/messing up my board?

https://www.amazon.com/Amana-Tool-45427-01-Straight-Production/dp/B01N4BA07W/ref=sr_1_1?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1488583366&sr=1-1&keywords=45427-01

There are CNC places nearby but I fear they'd either tell me the job was too small or that their quoted cost would put me into "Pre-made piano black PTP6 plinth from eBay" territory, trying to keep it to materials I already own and DIY'd in my garage, if at all possible.

[Andr039]

Hi, Rob
i don't see any reason why you cannot use this board for your PTP build.
If hand routing isn't your old shoe i would recommend to make an template and use router bit template cutter
it makes the whole work a bit more secure for your board.

best,
Andrey

[bush baby]

Go ahead - you might lose a cutting board but you might gain a lot of experience and a cool looking plinth. Good Luck.

[wer]

Agree with Andrey on that one. My experience with free hand routing are not positive, and even with a (Festo) router bench it was only much easier to to straight routing. On the other hand, if i watch our chippy router out the recesses for door locks, it looks so easy 

Go for the template 

[mred]

One of our Austin members Pete had a Thorens in a maple cutting board and it was pretty good.
I think he might have a thread  on here about doing the same with B61 / L70
Look for pfowler in Lenco based projects.

[J-ROB]

I used to live in Austin. Miss the BBQ and blues...and the relative warmth!

I am working on something similar right now in my mind. I ordered a 1.75" thick slab of khaya mahogany Friday.

What I would do is find a stout drill press that has enough throat depth to reach into that slab to cut holes. You can probably find one on Craigslist for 75 bucks...or ask around to see if you can use somebody elses.

Going through 3" of maple would be a challenge for a generic jigsaw. it would take three or four junky Black and Decker grade saws to finish the job, since they would burn out one after the other.

I'm planning to mostly drill out my slab and clean it up with a coarse rasp. The edges of the PTP cutout do not have to be perfectly smooth at all and the mess created will not be visible once the PTP is installed.

I'll try my reasonably strong Dewalt jigsaw but I think the drill will be more efficient. With 3" of maple, I'd go straight for the drill press.

I say buy a few nice new industrial grade bits on ebay and drill away.

But I'm not a skilled woodworker. In fact, I have few verifiable skills...

[mred]

I hae a nice Jet drill press but it's a drive    but you are welcome too use it.

Joe, I miss the food and the music scene,  but Austin  has gotten to difficult to get around and deal with.

[tabarddn]

Hi, Where did you buy the Maple cutting board from?. Cheers

[RobTX]

Great advice from everyone, I really appreciate it  

I got the cutting board from an eBay seller http://www.ebay.com/sch/dawn5879/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_ipg=&_from=

When you say to make a template for the router, I have a scroll saw I didn't mention as I didn't think it would be useful for this sort of thing but it's got me thinking, I could perhaps get a piece of mdf and cut the shape of the needed cutouts in it with my scroll saw then clamp the mdf to my cutting board and plunge route with the pattern bit, say 3/4" of depth at a time until I was through? Is that about how that sort of thing would work?

Also with regard to the drill press idea I do have one but it only has about an 8" throat. My friend has a big floor stander, I might have to ask him how deep it is. How exactly would that work I'm wondering? Big hole saw holes in the corners connected by 1/2" holes all the way around the edge lines? Or big hole saw holes all the way around so there'd be as few holes as possible (with more clean up after admittedly).

For the Austin guys, I've been in the area since 2003. We moved here from Upstate NY with my job. I absolutely love the weather, food, and music scene and don't mind the traffic at all honestly. I just stay off the road during rush hour (remote worker)

 

[J-ROB]

When I moved to Austin in 92 or so, there was no traffic. None. I-35 at 5:30 was empty. I lived right at Airport Blvd. and I-35. I have heard it got way more crowded and obnoxious since I left 8 years ago and then it ws already getting bad.

Still, DC is worse. Trust me. Too many humans around here, plus a lot of politicians.

As regards drilling, I'd do the corners with maybe a 1/2" bit and get a larger bit for hogging out the rest, although you could do it all with a 1/2" bit. If you space the 1/2" holes right, then fill in with a larger bit, you can minimize the size and number of "teeth" to file down afterwards.

That's a nice block of wood! If I didn't just buy the quartersawn mahogany, I'd buy one. Might pick one up for my next project afterwards.

My thinking, after building a PTP on a very dead nylon plinth, is that the lenco is so tame in terms of self-generated vibration and kinda heading in the direction of restrained sound to begin with, so a more lively plinth would be in order. However, I wouldn't hesitate to use that chunk of maple.

[mred]

Rob,
I grew up in the fingerlakes.
I done the winter but do love that area.

[plexi]

lamoka laker here....regarding maple. I made a 3"hard rock maple for my l70 ptp and I struggle to get rid of some stridency that I can only blame the plinth for (or ptp but that's less likely). I've tried many feet, many arms, many arm mounts, carts etc .....so I can say it's worth a try but I wouldn't do it again. I would use a sandwich cdl type design with maple sandwiched with some other substance.....

[plexi]

the easiest way to make the cutouts is to drill some one inch holes to remove as much material as possible then template rout the final edge. A 1/4"mdf template can serve to ride the flush trim bearing against. I needed several sized flush cutting bits though to get down to 3" and I used both top and bottom bearing kinds as I routed from both sides.

[RobTX]

Thanks everyone for chiming in with advice, really appreciate it. I've had a good think about it and decided to go with a local woodworker to do the plinth build for me. He has a facebook page with his past projects and they are incredible. And the price he quoted is very fair.

lamoka laker here....regarding maple. I made a 3"hard rock maple for my l70 ptp and I struggle to get rid of some stridency that I can only blame the plinth for (or ptp but that's less likely). I've tried many feet, many arms, many arm mounts, carts etc .....so I can say it's worth a try but I wouldn't do it again. I would use a sandwich cdl type design with maple sandwiched with some other substance.....

This is something I've read from others as well, and one of the main reasons I decided to have a birch ply plinth made for me. I could probably pull it off with my tools but I'm disabled and it's a lot to take on. It would wipe me out for weeks, I'm just going to pay for it. I'll do the table refurb, parts install etc myself but it will be nice to get the plinth all ready to go, built to my spec. For anyone curious, I'm going to have him build a 5 layer 3/4" birch ply for the PTP6. A basic straight edged rectangle big enough for a 12" arm in the future, with a large, flush, single rectangular armboard (and a spare), all veneered in black walnut with a satin finish. I have an SME 3009 Series III in excellent condition with a brand new CA-1 wand and a new Audio-Technica AT160ML cartridge I'll be installing on it. I also ordered a silver metal 10mm spacer for the SME mount since the PTP6 will put the platter up quite high.

Rob,
I grew up in the fingerlakes.
I done the winter but do love that area.

I miss the north east a lot sometimes. I miss giant family owned diners with 20 page menus, Italian delis and butcher shops, side of the road ice cream/hot dog stands, visiting Vermont during the fall. The list goes on and on really. There's plenty to make up for it in Austin, but I do miss it.

[rfgumby]

Yep.  Do a template, use it as a guide, and then plunge and tear out 1/2" depth at a time.  That'll make it a much easier job on a solid plinth.