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I recently acquired a Victor 8-30x and among it's problems was a broken tone arm bracket, the pot metal part that secures the tonearm at the top. I had another orthophonic tone arm and base in good condition but that tone arm was nickel plated, too short, and mounted at the wrong angle for the 8-30 so I thought I could take the base apart and move the pot metal part over to the 8-30 tone arm base. Unfortunately, the pot metal part had swollen and was terminally stuck in the steel base. The only way I could think of to get the pot metal part out in one piece was to cut off the metal base, so I did and it worked! I installed the pot metal part into the 8-30 steel base and now I have a good tone arm for my 8-30!!

Great work. Those swollen brackets can be tough to get out. On one of mine, the bracket was toast, but I needed to save the base so I could install one of Smith's replacement brackets. I had to cut and chop the old bracket out and then clean up and repaint the base.

P.S. Castle Rock, Washington? Home of the finest cheesecake I've ever tasted as prepared by Chef Tony at Parker's Restaurant.

AZ* wrote:Great work. Those swollen brackets can be tough to get out. On one of mine, the bracket was toast, but I needed to save the base so I could install one of Smith's replacement brackets. I had to cut and chop the old bracket out and then clean up and repaint the base.

P.S. Castle Rock, Washington? Home of the finest cheesecake I've ever tasted as prepared by Chef Tony at Parker's Restaurant.

I also had to cut and chop the old bracket out of the 8-30 base whilst trying not to damage it. Lots of fun!

Might have to try the cheesecake at Parkers. Usually, we go to Peper's 49'er.

Cliff