what to do with some old tube organ chassis?

[elderteledude]

Howdy, all! First post & I ignored the attack site stuff with no issues

I have inherited a truck full of old metal parts. There's a decent amount of amp chassis from tube organs, and what looks like tonewheel assemblies and keybeds from Hammond M series organs. It has all sat outside for a couple of years, so there's some rust, but not too hateful.

I'm willing to go through the lot and salvage iron, snip out coupling caps and other components. I have the time now, before I start a new job.

A couple of questions: Do you think it is worth the trouble? If I haul the lot to the recycler, any advice to getting a decent deal out of it? I'm going to estimate a half ton of metal.

Any advice gratefully appreciated,

Best regards,
elderteledude

[xtian]

Welcome!

I've recycled several Hammond amp chassis. Like you, I thought, well, I have the time. It takes several hours to snip, solder, and scrub all the old shit out of there, and then you've got a steel chassis that's tough to drill if you need different holes. Now I think, hardly worth the effort when you can get a blank chassis for $40, or a perfectly drilled one for $60.

No experience with selling scrap, so good luck!

[sluckey]

eBay will get big dollars for those amps if the chassis have all components on them. Way more than you'll get at a salvage yard.

[Phil_S]

Maybe a few pictures will help us understand what you have. I'll also second sluckey, on eBay you should check to see what a half-way decent Hammond chassis with transformers will sell for, certainly $50-100 for many of them, possibly more depending on condition, if it has tubes, etc.

As an amateur builder, I'd look to cherry pick some transformers. Tubes may be iffy, but worth taking. Many old tubes still have life in them. Some of the models are good platforms for a guitar amp, some, not so much.

We don't know your familiarity with tube amps so it is hard to advise, but the scrap dealer is not the person to go to.

Welcome to the amp garage! Don't be concerned about the malware warning. I've been ignoring it for nearly a year and haven't caught anything. We don't know why the site admin can't get rid of it.

[Buschman]

One of the best sounding amps I have is an 18 watt lite built from an ao35 Hammond chassis. Built it on turret strips. If this stuff has been outside however the iron may not be worth the effort.