I read that the medallion was a weak point in the VB’s design, and prone to breakage.

Can anyone tell me why it is so prone? Is it damage that is usually caused by dropping the VB or otherwise rough treatment, or can it occur spontaneously or through normal use?

Cheers!

Its a design flaw in the stand. As you open the stand it puts a lot of strain on the medallion and cracks.
You can buy a replacement from a member on here, hedgetrimmer, very helpful guy, fair price too.

i would assume it happens more often from abuse. don’t abruptly open the stand, don’t slam it around, etc. with that said, the plastic won’t last forever. eventually it has to give, but i feel like you can prolong that for a VERY long time if you are just careful about it.

Well I must say it seems to resist impact alright. I (very unfortunately) tripped over the power cable of my VB sending it flying onto the hardwood floor (cable re-routed, never happening again!). While the stand got slightly disfigured (leans a bit to the left now), the medallion is fine.

There, I admitted it. I’m now going to sit in the corner sobbing and stroking my VB =(

Although it proves that these things are actually pretty tough, since it still works flawlessly. I guess that would probably have been different had it been on when it happened…

Thanks people. I’ll keep going with my original, intact medallion. I already treat my VB with kid gloves. I hope I’ll be OK with that, but I’ll bear in mind the replacement parts.

Thanks!

I posted a pic on here a while back about a repaired stand; used steel screws & lock washers (had to bend the legs into more of a complete circle), made four cuts into the metal “hub-plate” and bent resultant tabs up, to make stops for the legs.

Lately, I copied a good hub with paraffin, then molded an epoxy-putty hub shell. It looks respectably like original, except the flat side of the hub-plate now has a couple of screws & nuts, instead of the original philip’s screw heads.

But it’s actually STEEL now on the pivots and stops; ain’t gonna break no way no how…

🙂