Here is the inside pretty well bolted down. You can see where the strobe PCB had to be moved slightly to position the lamps for the 60 Hz strobe markings. The wiring to the board makes for the board staying pretty well in place but I have installed a 3mm screw and washer to help hold it down. Eventually I want to cut a small strip of metal that will span the two available screw holes and clamp down that edge of the board. But this will work fine for me now. Now it is time to clean up my work shop and prepare for the next project. I also intend to spend the next, nice weather weekend polishing up my two Beogram 4000 dust covers.

As always interesting how you find solutions where someone without your persistence would leave it in the corner.

As for polishing your covers, my experience is only hard hand work does it, I have tried with polishing pads attached to fast drilling machines, slow running drilling machines, with foam pads, with rubber pads, with lamb wool pads and whatever pads I could find, the only thing they did was a lot of mess all around the working space.

The best way is to find a table and good supports for the covers, aca a steady  cardboard box that fits inside the cover, cover the box with a cotton rag not to damage the inside of the cover, and then find a chair that fits a comfortable working height.

To decide how damaged the cover is, run a finger nail over the scratches if you feel them you will have to start with 60 or even 80 micron finishing paper, if you cant feel them it may be enough to start with 30 micron, if only swirl from dusting is visible you can start with 15 micron.

If only smaller deep scratches are there, I start with 60 micron only over the scratches and sand in one direction  until the scratches are no more visible I then go to the 30 micron and sand in direction 90° to the 60 micron grain all over the cover, until the 60 micron grain and other smaller marks are no more visible, the down to 15 micron and again 90° direction to the 30 micron until grain is invisible, then the same with 9 micron and then with 3 micron, there should now be an almost perfect surface there, nearly totally clear and shiny, at last I polish with Novus no.2 and the shine and clearness is there, then treat with Novus no.1 or treat it with a car wax.

When sanding use tap water and keep wet all of time, clean off with tap water between changes to smaller microns and let dry before Novus no.1

The cover for my BG 1000 came out nearly perfect and the cover for my BG 4002 perfect. with deep scratches present count 2.5 to 3 hours hard work.

Yes, it sounds like the slow, hand sanding process is the way to go. I will also need some good music playing while I sit there and sand the cover. I should be able to manage that part.

Thanks Søren.

While I continue the slow learning process (slow for me) of restoring the dust covers, a new workbench toy arrived today. I have been anxiously waiting to try this new measurement device since I first saw it on

I just uploaded a

After a few weeks of on again, off again playing around with the dustcover polishing I think I ended up with a decent result. I still need to perfect the technique and I am way too slow. I think I could have restored four or five turntables in the time it has taken me to finish my first attempt at a dustcover.

During my testing I tried several wet sanding paper products. Micro pads, micro cloth and regular wet sandpaper (from 400 grit down to 5000 grit). I did learn it is worth buying some nice, soft, sponge pad sanding blocks. Here is a picture of some of the sanding tools I tried.

On this first dustcover I decided to only attempt the restoration of the top of the dustcover. I didn't touch the sides or the inside of the cover.

I ended up going through all of the micron sanding pad/paper steps, then I restarted back a 400 grit wet sandpaper because I was unhappy with the first result. After that first attempt the dustcover lid was not clear at all. I didn't have the sponge pad blocks on the first attempt though.

I spent way more time on each step the second time around and I used the sponge pads. I also primarily just stuck to the 3M wet sandpaper.
The results were better and the following picture shows the result after the final 5000 grit sanding. The picture actually makes the dustcover result look better that it is. When I look through the dustcover sides in comparison to the top, the difference is very noticeable.

Since I had exhausted all of the sand paper grit steps and the finish wasn't satisfactory, I moved on to the polishing step. The result of the sanding was an extremely smooth surface so that part of the result was good.

I have the Novus plastic polishing products but I decided to try the

Here is a side by side comparison of the dustcover after the final 5000 grit sanding step versus the polishing step. The improvement in clarity is obvious. If I can improve my technique and skill with the top of the cover I hope to eventually tackle restoring the inside of these dustcovers. I have a few with scratches on the underside. I also have some Beogram 8000 and 8002 covers I would like to try...but I am nowhere ready for those types yet. 

Here is some additional information about the various sanding material. The numeric value of the abrasion (i.e. 400 grit) is not the same across the various materials - Micro-Mesh and sandpaper. Here is a conversion chart that shows the differences. The chart doesn't cover the 2000, 2500, 3000 and 5000 grit 3M sandpaper that I finished with though.