Harvest Time

[Smokebreak]

It's been flooding down here, and this organ washed right up.
It has a dozen Wurlitzer branded 12AX7s , a ton of 12FQ8, a couple of 7868, and a 5BC3. I'm gonna start pickin it.

[Phil_S]

Careful, you'll get addicted to the desoldering smoke. I'm pretty sure it is full of lead. You've got enough caps to last a lifetime and enough wire to last for a long time. Lot's of other goodies, too, if you can harvest them and they are worth the effort. I have a chassis with a pile of those cheap phenolic paper tube sockets. Feh!

[Structo]

Man, can you imagine wiring that thing?

Must have taken the ladies a day or two to finish it.

Sorry to see all the flooding in places not usually hit.

Weird weather for sure.

[Smokebreak]

I didn't take any heat to it Phil. Snip snip. Some of the leads would be too short even if I had, but there's some usable stuff in there. Caps are good values, and 90% of the resistors are 33K, 1M, and 560K, used with that odd oscillator tube, all 28 of em!
I'm still up in the air on whether to chance those 7868s that are in there, being large 9pin and all. I got the sockets out but one of the mounting holes ripped, making my decision a little easier .

Tom, that's exactly what I was thinking! Imagine firing that thing up and it makes no sound The "fencing" is really neat though, as tie points.

Thanks for the thought, we didn't get hit bad in my exact location, but other parts of town flooded badly, and Wimberly TX seemed to get washed out to sea. Very sad.

So I'm trying to figure out what to build with these trannies. The PT is a Stancor 501426 that ran 7868s(7591) in this amp, and ran 6l6s in other amps, so I guess I've got plenty of current available.

I injected 11VAC and wound up with 71VAC, so in the 117V days it looks like this would have been 375-0-375 totally unloaded, so I guess 350-0-350 would be an estimate

I got the rest of the leads sorted, until I realized I had 2 red/yellow that both were at ground. Turns out one of them was one side of a 12V winding for the 12FQ8s, which apparently can only be run in 12V series? So if anyone from the future is reading this, the thicker of the red/yellow along with one of the red leads(on the vibe pot) is the 12V winding. There's also a 120V bias winding. Mine is red/blue.

I'd like to build a tweed amp, and I think I'll run 6L6GC. Any thoughts? Bandmaster? Or maybe build the Hoso 56 with the 7868s? Something dirty and very early B. Gibbons, like on "Tejas".

[John_P_WI]

Man I grew up about 15 minutes from that Wurlitzer factory in DeKalb, Illinois. 'Bout the mid-70's when I became interested in electronics the factory was starting to wind down. Wished I had known back then about tubes etc, I would have loved to have cleaned that place out.

[Phil_S]

Snip, snip? If there is enough left to curl into a circle with the slim end of a needle nose, you can extend the leads. I do this sometimes. I think it's all fair game for a personal build. If built for production and resale, it would have to be all new parts. It's a nice haul. Sorry for your flooding troubles in Texas.

[Smokebreak]

Thanks Phil I just meant that wasn't going to desolder anything. Even the shortest leads are spliceable. This is gonna be a personal build, or perhaps for a friend.

[Phil_S]

No sniffing fumes? Heck, you're taking all the fun out of it. Snip, snip.

Fun aside, snipping them is the way to go.

[Smokebreak]

I'll tell you what's even more fun Phil...check out the way the PT is mounted in the original chassis, then imagine trying to put it in a standard 2.5" chassis. DOH!

[Phil_S]

Those organ PTs can be massive. I've got one that I think clocked in at 9.5 pounds. The filament winding is 6.3V @ 9.5A.

[Smokebreak]

Indeed. Check out the direction of the mounting bolts with respect to the leads. I didn't see it comin, myself, till I tried to put it in a chassis. I just reversed the direction of the bolts.

[Phil_S]

Indeed. Check out the direction of the mounting bolts with respect to the leads. I didn't see it comin, myself, till I tried to put it in a chassis. I just reversed the direction of the bolts.

Good move. I probably would have tried to put brackets on it for a stand up mount. Where would that get ya? Moves the center of gravity too high and makes it want to tip over.

[menger66]

I built a bunch of 6l6 deluxe type builds with those exact same chassis if its the black painted output transformer they sound pretty good, try recycling those good all capacitors they sound alot like the blue molded caps, i still have atleast 5 of those transformer sets on the shelf mark

[Smokebreak]

Thanks for the report Mark! That's good news on the black OTs. That's the one I've got too. I'd like to see how you negotiated that oddly figured chassis into a box, if that was the case. I'm gonna use the 7868s and recto that came with it, and hope for the best. I'm procrastinating making a cutout in a new chassis as we speak . I'm definitely gonna use everything I can from this thing.

[menger66]

I bent new chassis for mine if you have a break just strip and put a fold on the other side that wouldmake a excellent ampeg portaflex projec, you can exapect about 425v on plates with 5u4