Antique Electronic Supply drifting to electric guitars?

[k4kyv]

i have a number of pieces around here that need minor fixing. Some of the stuff is worth $$$ and they were given to me without asking for them from local hams. Since I now feel that I'll probably never get around to fixing them, I'm thinking about selling them. I'm going to ask the givers how they feel about that? I'll tell them I'm going to donate the money to a good cause while my real intentions are to blow the money on dope and booze. Is this a good thing?

Terry,
We all have different ways we feel comfortable in getting rid of stuff.  Some like to buy low and sell high and some like to buy high and sell low!  Some like to give stuff away and others wait until they become an SK and let someone else worry about what happens to the goods.  I think that last line was talked about here in recent days.  

My operating principle is if something is given to me as a gift and no money has exchanged hands and I decide to let it go, its given away with no money exchanging hands.  If I pay 100 bucks for something and I decide to sell it, then I will try to get 100 bucks for it but certainly no more.  What I really look for is to get it in the hands of someone that is going to use it.  Concerning the gifts, if the person is still alive that gave me something, I will first ask if they want it back. In my case most of my gifts are from Ham's that are now silent key.

Pretty much the same here.  However, I do take into consideration the ongoing daily devaluation of the dollar. If I bought something for $30 in 1970 and decide to sell it to-day, I'll bring up the on-line Inflation Index and calculate its value in to-day's dollarettes, plus add anything I remember paying for shipping.

It has irked me a few times when someone sold or put on ePay something I had given to  him for his own use because I thought he needed it.  However, once he gained ownership of it, it was his to do with as he pleased, so all I could do would be to not be so generous with him ever again. I would have been even more pissed off if he told me he had thrown it in the dump because he no longer had a use for it, although it had not crapped out.

[kg8lb]

At the core of the matter, this rings true:

"However, once he gained ownership of it, it was his to do with as he pleased,"

...Exactly my stance. The old radio parts are indeed mine. In the past I had no qualm about just plain giving the stuff away or selling it at a loss. I didn't have to consult an appreciation table however. Unlike you I do not take into consideration the ongoing daily devaluation of the dollar.  
 I bought a brand new in the crate never been opened BC-610 modulator deck at a local hamfest 20 years ago. Still had the old H'Crafters label intact. When a fellow ham nearby landed a BC-610 that new deck was hauled up there. No $$$ needed.
 I am certain it is a pretty valuable deck,no matter.
 Don, You can rest easy. I never throw away anything that was given to me. In fact precious little has been given to me. Anything I toss out came the old fashioned way...I bought it. That is why I can feel good about throwing it out when I no longer need it.
  Exactly as Joe does, I always offer anything given to me back to the giver before I pass it along to someone else. And then I give it away .If it was "fre" to me , the next guy gets it for free.

You can only haul huge transformers and chokes, old ceramic jack bars and tube sockets etc to just so many hamfests before it becomes time to set the stuff at the curb. (Not literally, "recycle" is the actual activity) Since it is my money (means as little to me as yours does to you) I feel fine tossing the stuff . Already given away piles  of stuff to the one way bottom feeders in the past .

[W2PFY]

You can only haul huge transformers and chokes, old ceramic jack bars and tube sockets etc to just so many ham fests before it becomes time to set the stuff at the curb.

That's exactly how I acquired one large plate transformer. I know it weighs over 100 pounds but not over 150 because I don't think I can lift 150 anymore. The guy sold it to me for 10 bucks. I said to him, why so little money, he said he was tired of lugging the thing and was happy to see me get it!!

[N4LTA]

Be glad the guitar amp people are out there. Without them, there would be no tubes, tube parts or tube transformers still being manufactured.

If Marshall or Fender could make a solid state guitar amp that sounded worth anything, they definately would drop tubes like  a hot potato. They and many others have been trying for years. Tube amps are expensive, fragile and hard to manufacture.

The "high end audio" tube people are small potatoes compared to the guitar amp manufacturing companies.  And the guitar amp companies are pretty much small potatoes in the electronics manufacturing world.

Nothing solid state distorts quite like a vacuum tube. Anyone who has played an electric guitar will tell you that.

Electric bass players on the other hand love big MOSFET power as do the clean types of instruments like a pedal steel or a keyboard.

[The Slab Bacon]

Actually, I was referring to the initial part of your statement about the radio stuff.

As far as the 3 liter stuff goes, it takes 30-50lbs of turbocharger boost to even think about it. Which oft times turns the engine into something short of a hand grenade with a long fuse.

Over the years, I have had my hands in just about every kind of drag racing cars from sportsman stuff to top alcohol funny cars. I occasionaly used to find myself behind the wheel of my buddy's SS/DA hemi challenger (I was the mechanic for him) which used to go 10.40s 35 years ago. If the bite was good, it would stand up right on the back bumper. If you've never been there, you wouldn't know! ! ! ! !

Or as one of my Harley-Davidson T-shirts states it so well: "If I have to explain, you wouldn't understand"

[k4kyv]

Anything I toss out came the old fashioned way...I bought it. That is why I can feel good about throwing it out when I no longer need it...
You can only haul huige transformers and chokes, old ceramic jack bars and tube sockets etc to just so many hamfests before it becomes time to set the stuff at the curb. Since it is my money (means as little to me as yours does to you) I feel fine tossing the stuff .

Why not just put it all in a big box, take it to a hamfest, write "free" on the box and let anyone pick through it for anything they might want?  Or collect it in a big pile, pick out an appropriate day and invite anyone interested to come pick through the stuff, or give it all away to anyone interested in hauling it away, on the condition that everything goes?  I have acquired some of my best hamfest treasures from the "free" boxes and from the boxes under the  tables marked "anything in the box, 25¢ each". A local broadcast station gave me my BC1-T on the condition that I clear the whole thing, including spare transformers and other parts, out of their transmitter building where it was all in their way.

I don't seek out complete functioning receivers, transmitters, amplifiers, and other such equipment at the flea markets, (unless it is something I find particularly valuable, unusual or something I have been specifically looking for, as for example a 75A-4, pre-WW2 HRO, mid 1930's transmitter, or certain pieces of audio equipment.) OTOH, the transformers, tube sockets, coil forms, ceramic jack bars, insulators, shaft sleeves, knobs, meters, shaft couplers, capacitors, resistors, terminal strips, blank rack panels, unused or re-usable chassis bases, etc., particularly stuff made before 1960, are precisely the things that are getting scarce and making it difficult to build from scratch, but this is exactly what most often gets tossed out as "junk" when an estate is settled or a ham decides to reduce his inventory. To me, it's just as much or more of a tragedy to see a substantial pile of this sort of stuff thrown out as to see a working DX-100, SX-99 or other mediocre "boat anchor" that never was all that great to begin with, to go to the  dump.

Like the two truckloads of stuff a couple of other AMers and myself hauled 250 miles back to Nashville from Indiana in the 1980s. The wife had already sold the 75A-4, HT-37 and slopbucket transceiver, but the local radio club types told her the rest of the collection, a homebrew plate modulated transmitter and a large collection of tubes and parts dating as far back as the late 1920s, were "old junk" that absolutely no-one would any longer be interested in, and advised her to find someone with a truck and have it all hauled to the dump. Fortunately, we found out about it in time, and she gave it all to us in exchange for hauling it away.  We saved many treasures and a lot of radio history in that haul.

Just try to build a substantial homebrew project from scratch these days and see how easy it (won't be) to find all the little odds and ends necessary for the job.

I could never "feel good" about throwing this stuff away, and feel contempt for those who do, even though it is theirs to dispose of as they wish. (But don't you dare yell at me when you see me picking through your rubbish before the garbage truck arrives or pulling stuff out of the dumpster).

[W2PFY]

Aw shucks Gary, we knew you were just joshing

[kg8lb]

Actually, I was referring to the initial part of your statement about the radio stuff.

As far as the 3 liter stuff goes, it takes 30-50lbs of turbocharger boost to even think about it. Which oft times turns the engine into something short of a hand grenade with a long fuse.

Over the years, I have had my hands in just about every kind of drag racing cars from sportsman stuff to top alcohol funny cars. I occasionaly used to find myself behind the wheel of my buddy's SS/DA hemi challenger (I was the mechanic for him) which used to go 10.40s 35 years ago. If the bite was good, it would stand up right on the back bumper. If you've never been there, you wouldn't know! ! ! ! !

Or as one of my Harley-Davidson T-shirts states it so well: "If I have to explain, you wouldn't understand"

Actually, I was just kidding, but now that you mention it..
Chrysler street Hemis were hand grenades as well only the fuses were much shorter. The dragging rear bumper was from the fuel load in the tank , behind the rear axle. Remember, it had to go a full quarter mile !!!

 Harleys ? I do understand but they could never catch our Ducatis or Aprillias to explain anyhow. I didn't wrench on anybody else's drag cars , too busy running my side by side Triumph drag bike ...gobbling up, you guessed it , Harleys !  BTW in those days even high 9s on two wheels (without wheelie bars) was every bit as impressive as  mid 10s in a 4 wheeled cage.  I had cars too but  preferred the challenge of bikes.
 Besides ,putting Harleys on trailers is a lot more fun. Of course most miles under todays Harleys are accumulated on a trailer . Maybe a Darwinian thing ? I've seen that shirt too. It says it so well..."I took My Harley to Trailer Week"

If you had to explain, you could not. ...Is closer to the truth.

[kg8lb]

 To me, it's just as much or more of a tragedy to see a substantial pile of this sort of stuff thrown out as to see a working DX-100, SX-99 or other mediocre "boat anchor" that never was all that great to begin with, to go to the  dump.

  BTW Don, Great stories about all the stuff that was given to you.
Problem is , different needs , different resources, different people. The not a problem part is ..not everyone is DON    

 You see Don, almost all the stuff you treasure, I can make for myself. Ceramic forms, Jack bars etc, Sheet metal chassis, rack panels and cabinets,couplings, shafts,calibrated silver steel dials, etched escutcheons, knobs , gear drives in fact most all of the mechanical parts are a walk in the park.  

I will gladly however trade you my next curbside load of that type of treasure for one of those "mediocre" SX-100s you would rather see in the trash! Deal ?

Aw shucks Gary, we knew you were just joshing

 

[The Slab Bacon]

"If I had to explain, you wouldn't understand"   

[The Slab Bacon]

I have owned (and built) my share of bikes over the years, including putting over 100k miles on a '63 T-120 with a Routt kit. It was quite fast for it's day, and I could play "unicycle" with it for unlimited distances. Owned 1 Ducati, 1 BSA, 1 Norton, 2 Benellis, countless Hondas, and 2 Harleys. I have put many 1000s of miles on motorcycles and never had one come home on a trailer or in the back of a truck, excepting, maybe for the initial purchase.

The biggest failure problem with 426 Hemis were the 5/16" valve stems. If you ran excessive seat pressure with stock valves, they would pull the stems out of the heads.

[kg8lb]

 Similar background here, The fellow I built the drag bike with worked for Sonny. In fact I bought Sonny's last 833 kit for my BSA triple. Hung a set of Mikunis on , added a home ground copy of a  Megacycle cam and went out hunting Kaw Z1s ! Owned 10 Ducs , Starting with a 75 750 Sport and moving next to an 82 ,S2 900 Desmo. Over 50 bikes over the years , BSA was the first "Big Twin", a 1963 A-50 Royal Star  at age 15 .AJS ,Royal Enfields,Nortons,  Velocettes, Triumph twins and triples , even a Matchless G-85 CS  came along thru the years. Mostly basket cases, the fun way to own a bike is to build it. My favorite brand for all around riding remains the Moto Guzzis (After a total of 15 examples.  Just sold the last one , an old 1983 CalII with 198,000 miles on the clock. It was my year round every day commuter, tourer and two wheeled pick up truck. In fact my 4 wheeler only ran up 2K in the same time it took for the 2 wheelers to total 20K . Really wanted to click it over the 200K mark. The broken back however got in the way of that plan.

 BTW, 10 years after building the Triumph it was featured as the center spread in a 1988 issue of Iron Horse mag. The story erroneously hinted that it had been recently built.  It was headlined as "The World's Rudest Triumph"  BNy then, Bill had upgraded our home made slipper to a Crowerglide and added a set of "Training Wheel" Wheelie bars along with the new 10 inch slick replacing the original 8 inch.
  
 Well aware of the Hemi valve train issues.(Among other possible fuses) My Brother in law ran a race head shop for many years and I often put time in there. Drag great, Don Garlits lived right across the street from our Jr High school for a few years. He was consulting for Chrysler Corp in the mid to late 60s and even opened his own shop in Troy, MI . The fellow was very accessible and liked to talk. He really got a kick out of my Mc8 powered , alky fueled Lil Indian mini bike. Later on wound up having Gene Kurlonko at the local kart shop build him one of his own for a pit bike. Of course HIS had a beautiful new Mc75 powerplant.  

 Just bustin your chops on the other stuff my man. It's all good   Good times , and a lot of fun.

 Guitars ? Drifting away ?.

[The Slab Bacon]

I like the Duc, but the drag bike definately looks old school! !

[kg8lb]

It was...1978 . The frame was a reworked Alf Hagon frame (1966 vintage). The orignal owner was Bob Leppan from Triumph Detroit of Gyronaut LSR fame. He originally built the bike as a single Triumph Fuel bike. We added trussing to the sides of the frame, widened the rear and used a baby Ceriani on the front.
 The Triumph Pre-Unit engines plugged into a central primary drive case that also handled the blower drive to an itty bitty Jimmy Rootes type blower , fed by 1/2 of an old Hilborn 4 cylinder sprint car injector.  Quite a few little details that were new at the time. For example the blower bearings were in cartridges that could be pulled without removing the end plates . Also we used the parallel port single carb heads as the narrow splay angle made a lot more HP than the Bonneville heads. The whole bike was built in a one car width pole barn. We had a Brideport, TIG welder , OD grinder and build table all crammed in to the rented garage. We later added an old "Modern" brand OD grinder that had been fitted with a 10:1 Hydraulic tracer . We then were able to develop our own cam grinds. Just one heck of a lot of fun and back then it was indeed a lot easier to get in to the whole thing.  Really cool to do the tuning without needing a lap top.
  Here at work , the laptop rules. No more  mill setups with compound sine plates and rotary tables. It is all done on the "tube". The bandsaw and hand finishing has given way to wire EDM , Laser and Water Jets. Not complaining just appreciating how much fun the "old school" stuff provided . Sure made you use a bit of ingenuity too .

[The Slab Bacon]

Old Triumphs had almost square lobes on the cams, with no clearence ramps, thats why no matter what you did the valves were noisy. They would fling the valves open and let them slam closed. The only cure was to go to aftermarket cams of which there wasn't too many manufacturers back then. Grinding your own must have been an interesting challenge. The square non-rotating lifters didnt help either. I guess you had to grind the lobes dead flat and square to get full face contact. The days of that kind of inginuity are long gone, and now thanks to this here internet, you can buy it all now and just bolt it together. With the old school flat pan seat, I hope you had some padding in the touchy of your leathers  

The shame of it all is that now, anyone with enough in their pocket to make a down payment can walk into a dealer and buy a bike that will make 9-second passes right off of the showroom floor. Maybe they should have a "cash for clunkers" program for old drag bikes   

I never really got into dragging bikes, (other than some street racing) for bikes it was flat track racing. Back in the day when men were men and you weren't allowed to have brakes. But for 4-wheeled vehicles, it was drag racing. I used to love to mix it up with some of the bucks up guys and beat them. It was worth all of the work to see the looks on their faces.

[kg8lb]

 1/2 Mile AMA and vintage flat tracking is nearly the only racing we get near now days.  We pit a little and fabricate a lot of parts for a good friend that road races on Guzzis.   
  We restored and ex-Bart Markel XR-750 a few years ago for an old school buddy.

[W2PFY]

You see Don, almost all the stuff you treasure, I can make for myself. Ceramic forms, Jack bars etc, Sheet metal chassis, rack panels and cabinets,couplings, shafts,calibrated silver steel dials, etched escutcheons, knobs , gear drives in fact most all of the mechanical parts are a walk in the park. 

As Mr. Rogers said "Won't you be my neighbor?"

Most of the people with these abilities live far away from me

[kg8lb]

 If you care to move down to Kodak TN , high on a bluff overlooking the big old French Broad river near Gatlinburg , we may wind up neighbors ! There is certainly room for you .

[The Slab Bacon]

1/2 Mile AMA and vintage flat tracking is nearly the only racing we get near now days.  We pit a little and fabricate a lot of parts for a good friend that road races on Guzzis.  
  We restored and ex-Bart Markel XR-750 a few years ago for an old school buddy.

Thatz pretty kool, but when I think of Bart Markel, I'm sorry but I think of a KR and not an
XR. I guess I'm just giving my age away. I googled him and a few or the other older heavy hitters, wondering what ever happened to them. Found a whole lot of interesting stuff! I still run into Gary Nixon occasionally. My wife was tickled to death when I got him to autograph a shirt for her.

do a google search on some of the past champs, also Sonny Routt, it's well worth the trouble, you'll find some interesting reading!

[kg8lb]

 My all time favorite all around good guy and great rider...Dick Mann ..  Called Palmdale information and got his phone number back in 1973 . Gave him a call out of the blue and the fellow talked for about 2 hours . A real gentleman to boot. He even offered to sell me his old Matchless G-50 road racer .   I got a kick out of watching him , riding a fairly new BSA Rocket3 at Daytona. He totally showed the best of the Japanese bikes and riders nuthin but his heels ! Since he won Daytona twice in a row, once on a Honda and once on a BSA I couldn't help but ask him how they compared on the track. "The BSA was a Sunday ride , the Honda was a lot of work" .

 Met Nixon at Anderson's Triumph back in the late 60s. He had his leg in a cast but was doing some mighty fine wheelies on a Triumph Daytona . Saw him a few years ago at Mid Ohio. He has not changed much.

 Dated ?  When I think KR Harleys, I think Joe Leonard, Carrol Resweber, Roger Reiman etc . This XR was one of Markel's late, personal toys. I think Bob is wanting to sell it , Genuine Lou Branch heads and all.

  A local racer and well known pin striper "Wild Bill" Betz said he was once on a track with Buggsy, knowing Dick Mann was coming up behind him he had his Yamaha stuffed into a corner as hard as he could manage. He was fighting the bucking mount for all it was worth, certain that he was making an impression on old Dick. About that time something nearly brushed his knee and swept by him smooth as silk. A clean inside pass and rocketed away.Bill said Mann was a real treat on the race track.

  Wild Bill Betz is the originator of the Triumph "Eyebrow" paint scheme. He originally started doing them for Triumph Detroit customers. The factory saw them and rolled their own copy into production. At that time, Triumph Detroit was  claimed the largest Triumph dealer in the world .
Sonny Routt hired a real wild man to ride for him after he was nearly killed in a crash. That wild man was Larry Welch. A little reading on him could never do justice to that character !  I'll save the story of him going thru the eyes on his rocket powered drag bike. 170++ MPH, one handing the bars,looking back, no helmet,pony tail flagging in the breeze and flipping his finger at the security guards that had just tried to stop him from making the run. Awesome !
  

[The Slab Bacon]

WOW You have reactivated some dead brain cells that have laid dormant for many years!!

this has been a way kool exchange! (a little off topic)   It has rekindled some serious memories! !  

Life was good back then!

[N6YW]

Anything I toss out came the old fashioned way...I bought it. That is why I can feel good about throwing it out when I no longer need it...
You can only haul huige transformers and chokes, old ceramic jack bars and tube sockets etc to just so many hamfests before it becomes time to set the stuff at the curb. Since it is my money (means as little to me as yours does to you) I feel fine tossing the stuff .

Why not just put it all in a big box, take it to a hamfest, write "free" on the box and let anyone pick through it for anything they might want?  Or collect it in a big pile, pick out an appropriate day and invite anyone interested to come pick through the stuff, or give it all away to anyone interested in hauling it away, on the condition that everything goes?  I have acquired some of my best hamfest treasures from the "free" boxes and from the boxes under the  tables marked "anything in the box, 25¢ each". A local broadcast station gave me my BC1-T on the condition that I clear the whole thing, including spare transformers and other parts, out of their transmitter building where it was all in their way.

I don't seek out complete functioning receivers, transmitters, amplifiers, and other such equipment at the flea markets, (unless it is something I find particularly valuable, unusual or something I have been specifically looking for, as for example a 75A-4, pre-WW2 HRO, mid 1930's transmitter, or certain pieces of audio equipment.) OTOH, the transformers, tube sockets, coil forms, ceramic jack bars, insulators, shaft sleeves, knobs, meters, shaft couplers, capacitors, resistors, terminal strips, blank rack panels, unused or re-usable chassis bases, etc., particularly stuff made before 1960, are precisely the things that are getting scarce and making it difficult to build from scratch, but this is exactly what most often gets tossed out as "junk" when an estate is settled or a ham decides to reduce his inventory. To me, it's just as much or more of a tragedy to see a substantial pile of this sort of stuff thrown out as to see a working DX-100, SX-99 or other mediocre "boat anchor" that never was all that great to begin with, to go to the  dump.

Like the two truckloads of stuff a couple of other AMers and myself hauled 250 miles back to Nashville from Indiana in the 1980s. The wife had already sold the 75A-4, HT-37 and slopbucket transceiver, but the local radio club types told her the rest of the collection, a homebrew plate modulated transmitter and a large collection of tubes and parts dating as far back as the late 1920s, were "old junk" that absolutely no-one would any longer be interested in, and advised her to find someone with a truck and have it all hauled to the dump. Fortunately, we found out about it in time, and she gave it all to us in exchange for hauling it away.  We saved many treasures and a lot of radio history in that haul.

Just try to build a substantial homebrew project from scratch these days and see how easy it (won't be) to find all the little odds and ends necessary for the job.

I could never "feel good" about throwing this stuff away, and feel contempt for those who do, even though it is theirs to dispose of as they wish. (But don't you dare yell at me when you see me picking through your rubbish before the garbage truck arrives or pulling stuff out of the dumpster).

Don
I too cannot bear to throw anything away. I recycle everything in the truest meaning of the word.
My collection of parts is pretty good and to keep it from taking over my life, I give some away here and there to help those in need during a repair, restoration or home brew project.
Thankfully, my wife (KF6QOG) is also an environmentalist, so she understands my need to not throw this stuff away. Just like throwing away QST and National Geographic magazines, I wouldn't be able to sleep for the guilt. I had three Conelrad receivers in a box...worthless junk except for some great parts. I gave them to a local guy for a project and saved the day for him. Back to topic.
At least CE Distribution/AES carries a decent stock of electrolytic capacitors. I am grateful for that.
Billy N6YW

[k4kyv]

I think it is the height of selfishness to hoard a large collection of stuff and then one day decide to haul it all to the dump because it has become inconvenient to continue storing it or because the owner has lost interest, without at least giving others who might be interested, the opportunity to peruse through it and possibly take some or all of it off one's hands.

I have heard that same old story over and over for decades. An old time ham dies, and the survivors haul all the radio stuff to the landfill except for the fancy ricebox station he had set up in the back bedroom to operate during his declining years after he became physically frail.

[The Slab Bacon]

Ah, yes, back (somewhat) to the original flavor of the thread..............

I do admit to being a "partsaholic." It is nice when something dear to you craps out at an inopportune time (like 2:00AM) to be able to reach over to the shelf and grab what you need to fix it. Pretty much everything that I own, I have spares for.

Also the supreme bite in the butt is when you discard something figgering "I'll never need one of those again", sure enough something comes up where you WILL need one. I have done this and ended up having to pay top dollar (and quite a bit of searching) to get another one.

The art to it, however, is to not let it displace you out of your home and / or garage.....................

[N6YW]

To add another perspective to this, and maybe this is the radio romantic in me speaking, but I have to believe that the SK before me, held his collection of equipment and parts in high regard, or who knows...he may have just taken it for granted. Either way, that person may have spent a lifetime collecting those pieces and to throw them away unceremoniously is a tragedy.
Many who discard these items are oftentimes ignorant of their value to others, but more importantly, may be environmentally unsafe as in the case of lead and PCB's being NEEDLESSLY introduced unto our landscape. I personally have several lifetime collections of parts and equipment and should the occasion arise that I meet an early demise, I am comforted in knowing that my wife knows what to do.