In a previous life as production director of a one-lung radio station, the budget I typically had to work with was . . . zero.
But stuff still had to get done. Studios still had to be made functional. Despite the lack of cash -- and the boss' legendary stinginess with what spending money we had -- there was a radio station to run as professionally as possible.
We had to sound good.
Let's just say I became rather expert at turning nothing into something. I became especially good at raiding the junk room and turning cast-off equipment into a decent production studio.
Yes, I have a Ph.D. in jury-rigging. It got so that the station's contract engineer took to calling me MacGyver -- after the '80s TV show in which Richard Dean Anderson could make anything out of anything to get himself out of a jam and foil the bad guy.
AT THE TOP of this post is my latest MacGyver moment. The tone-arm rest on my vintage Technics turntable broke -- don't ask. And after a long time futzing and trying to figure out how to fix the damned thing, this is what I came up with.
It looks good, it works fine . . . and all it took was the cap off an old felt-tip pen (the perfect size to fit over the base of the old tone-arm rest), some bonding putty to fill up the cut-off pen cap, thick wire from an oversized safety pin, a black marker and some super glue.
Considering that the repair-shop bill would have been more than the turntable's worth after 34 years, I would classify this as an "elegant solution." That is, I would call it that if modesty allowed.