My latest little project

 Digging through the catacombs I found all the makings of a classic '60s. combination- an original AR table,completely stock and a Rabco SL 8E arm! I forgot how I happened upon this table, probably when I cleared out the service department of JB Sound when they closed. I still have a myriad of broken Tandberg open reel decks, Nakamichi cassette decks in various states of disrepair, and I found this lonely little table sitting over to one side with an absolutely  horrible dustcover. This is actually the first AR table, I believe the XA, and it has a second motor to make sure it starts in the right direction! Of course, nobody has a belt like that laying around, so I had to order one. A couple of weeks later it showed up, I put it on and find that I still have to give the platter a little "kick" with my hand to get it moving. Motors are plenty strong, once it is rolling the speed is almost perfect and their is plenty of torque. Handy to unhook the second small belt if you want to play Beatles records backwards. Or if you are a redneck, you can play country records backwards and you will get your wife, pickup truck and dog back. (Sorry, no more bad jokes). Anyway, in a few short hours I had this up and running, I had had the arm mounted on a Thorens 125 when I first got it. Laying in my trinket stash was a mounting kit for the arm for an AR table as well as other spare Rabco parts!  Basically just a collar, allen wrench, and  two springs. This has been on my "gonna do it someday" list for a while. The kit still had the instructions, otherwise I would never have known that you just beat the stock arm out of the AR! It came right up, I unsoldered the wires, and pushed the new collar in place. One allen bolt and the arm was mounted, amazingly simple. This I believe is the original Rabco arm as well, not sure of the difference between the 8 and the 8E. The arm is linear tracking, one of the first of its type. The carrier is driven along by a ball chain, similar to the one you yank from the ceiling in your laundry room.  One motor drives it, and the other is for cuing, it cycles the arm up and down. The whole thing is driven by a C cell battery, and I, of course, like most people didn't have one! What else uses them? Had to run out, and of course I couldn't buy just one. A  4 pack later, the arm is up and running. The verdict- basically a cool old table with lots of character. State of the Art? No. A little finicky, but I guess amazing that it still works for almost 50 years old! The arm is probably a little newer than that, but not by much. Time has been kind to this, see the warranty card still attached and how perfect the UL sticker still is! Oh, well. Going to list it on Craigslist, not a romantic.