Wife brought home Tubes and other junk

[M Fowler]

My sister in law Julie goes to a lot of auction sales and she and her husband have their hands in the air scratching their noses when the gavel comes down and they find themselves paying $2 for six flat boxes of tube gear.

I sifted through the boxes and pulled out what I can use right away and the other stuff I will have to look up to see what I can use in amp building.

I did come away with a whole pile of carbon comp resistors, box of spraque .1 600v OD, many cap cans, old caps, old pots, lamp bulbs, precision caps, 3 new 6SN7s and do you see the tube box labelled Wards Airline.

Mark

[Wayne]

What a great score! She's a keeper! (your wife, I mean )

I cringe when I see carbon comps, but they'd be great for doing period-correct vintage repairs.

Be sure and tell us about anything unusual that you don't think you'll use - I'm constantly amazed at what this gang can do with unusual tubes. The bug has even bit me - I'm playing around with trying to make a champ-ish type amp out of a 17BF11 that was rolling around on my bench (hint, hint)

W

[M Fowler]

I don't think I have that tube but I have a lot of 12 blaa blaa and 6 blaa blaa. I think I will make a spread sheet to inventory what I have and go through my tube manual or on line reference.

I will check to see if I have that one you hinted about.

I did get two nice 12AT7s

Mark

[ChrisM]

Nice score Mark, I am envious.

I love the look of old tube boxes, they make me all giddy inside

[tubeswell]

Is your wife on commission?

[M Fowler]

Wayne,

I may have some 6BF11 which is better at 6.3v but not the 17BF11 at 16.8v. They are double dissimilar pentode.

Big words there, sorry. Section number 1 is a power pentode for audio output service section 2 is dual control, sharp cutoff pentode for FM detector applications. Wow to much for me to think about.

Mark

[Structo]

Definitely worth $2, eh?

There are probably thousands of garages around stuffed full of tubes and parts from former TV repairmen pack rats.

My cousin went to an estate sale a couple years ago and bought the entire contents of one such garage for something like $100.
He got a lot of amp tubes but also a bunch of tubes that would never see the inside of a guitar amp.
Not sure what he did with the rest of it as he is not a builder but rather a collector of vintage amps, so he is constantly on the lookout for tubes and stuff for those.

Think about all those old tube testers that used to sit inside drug stores and grocery stores where the average Joe could bring a bag of tubes to check to find the bad one in his TV set then open the cabinet to buy the new one.
There has to be a lot of those things around. The testers aren't worth squat but the tube stash probably has a few gems.

[Wayne]

Mark - yes, it's the same tube. It also comes in 12V and 24V. But that was only a half-joking hint. It's probably not practical for either of us, given that AES has them for a buck and change in all 4 heater voltages. I do plan on tacking a couple on my next order, as well as a socket. If I posted a picture of the "ghetto" socket I made to experiment with, you guys would all get a good chuckle!

I'll bet, though, there is stuff in that pile that someone would use & you wouldn't. I think it is important for tube-heads everywhere to share! Locally, there are a couple of old, long-retired techs that have basements full of stuff. If you approach them looking for something specific they're usually glad to oblige, but I wish one of them would let me clear out the entire pile for a fair price.

Enjoy your new pile-o-stuff!

W

[M Fowler]

In that junk was a tube adapter and in that tube adapter box a tube adapter chart, two pages of worth. I was thinking about scanning that paper for everyone to see.

The last time I good a mother load this big I was lucky enough to have gotten a lot of 6V6 and 6L6 tubes. I think there is some that I can build the All American Five amp out of, just need an isolation PT.

There are a lot of tubes in the batch that I see are used in some mono block amps for the stereo folks.

Mark

[Phil_S]

Mark,
Those 6SN7 are like the 12AU7, but for reasons I don't comprehend, the large plates make them fabulous output tubes. They will take up to 450 plate volts and I recommend pushing the limit. Here's my all octal, with a 9K output transformer and a 340-0-340 PT.
http://home.comcast.net/~psymonds/6SN7amp.htm
I'd recommend taming the PT a bit if you want to do something like this, maybe 325-0-325 or 300-0-300. It is the king of clean tone; sorry for the bad guitar playing

I used a pair of 6SN7 parallel PP so I could lower the primary load requirement on the OT. They are wired to allow pulling one tube. If you only use one, this would be like a firefly, looking for 22K, but figured I could compensate because the OT has 4-8-16z taps. Triodes will tolerate a wide range of loads OK.

That 6CW5 will make a nice choice for a Champ-like amp, but the plate load is 2K5, not 5K.

Real nice score. I'm jealous.

Phil

[M Fowler]

Thanks Phil, I have so many builds going on right now so these will be used another day. I want to build the Gibson EH150, early Tweed bassman with octal tubes in head cab and the All American Five for giggles.

Mark

[Structo]

Hah!

I just received a care package in the mail today.

About 15 tubes including a quad of 6L6GC's that have the Baldwin brand on them.
I wonder what they really are.

A bunch of 12ax7's, 12at7's and 12au7's too!

This guy on another guitar forum had said he was going to send me some and I had forgotten about them.
Always nice to get surprises in the mail like that.

EDIT:

Well there are only two 6L6GC tubes, the others are rectifiers.
But, they appear to be RCA blackplates with the Baldwin brand on them.

[M Fowler]

Tom you got a good score too, nice to hear.

I know that Benoit got a good score on spring clean up because he called me since I was the only guy he knew that would appreciate his enthusiasm
forr finding some organ amps and tubes.

Mark

[mark enger]

sweet score, got love yard sales. Listen to this, i was at the flea market, there was a old stereo a rca i looked in the back its got 6 el84 amp all rca tubes all working i coped that for 30$ lots of good tubes, some nice iron, but the guy gives me a speaker say it goes with it i open it up and its got a very old jensen speaker very old a pm10h made for western electric by jensen so i put it on ebay got 309$ for it told the old lady i got a 150$ she was happy and i ordered new transformers for a build iv been planning and the guy at the flea market says hes bringing in the other one this weekend. i dont know whats more fun building amps or finding the parts mark

[M Fowler]

Wow wish I could find those kind of flea markets. All nicknaks here.

Here is a list minus the known keepers, I don't have xcel.

Mark