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i did a bit of cleaning up in my grandfathers attick, he passed away a few years ago and we want to sell the house.
He never threw away anything so it's full of stuff
one of the things i noticed is that he has at least over 20 extremely old radios
seeing all those tubes, i was a bit like a 14 year old wondering 'can i put my instrument in there?'
so my question is, can i clean out the dust, wire an input and output jack into it, maybe swap some broken tubes and get a cool sound out of it?
Those radios will need looking after though. They probably haven't played in years and the capacitors inside may have died by now.
Quickest check is to open up the radio and inspect the capacitors of leaks, buldges, punctures etc.
A dead capacitor is a serious risk of fire and electrocution. So make sure you check and replace those before you turn 'em on. Or I won't be able to sleep tonight.
Check what tubes are in those BTW. Some of them may be worth a small fortune if still in good condition.
Absolutely. That is something I plan to do one day. It has been in the plans for years now. Just never got around to doing it.
One of the things you might encounter, is that the internals have corroded to the point where you might as well redesign the whole thing. An amp you could probably get away with putting in there would be a Champ like amp as they don't have much to them.
The real fun part will be replacing the speaker if need be... and you probably will.
that's another thing i've been thinking about
some of the radios are completely empty, just the antique wouden box
thought it could be cool to take the speaker out of my combo amp and put it in there and make a head out of the combo
or could that affect the sound?
This is somthing I'm working on at the moment, I found a guy not far from me who coverts radios using stock trannies and tube config. Using 6x4 power and 12ax7 preamp tube, ill have to check the rec tube. Sounds pretty awsome through a jensen c10q. I plan on shoe horning the champ in them.
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" Enjoy every Sandwich " Warren Zevon
They probably all have two prong cords, so fix that if you are going to use one for guitar. My first amp for years was an old 2x6v6 ca. 15 watt 50's multipurpose amp - wasn't thrilled with it back then, (the other guitarist had a late 70's twin reverb and liked it loud , so it was lacking a bit in the headroom department) .. but would probably love it today. But in my teenage innocence about these things, I would occasionally solder my lips to a mic or touch something while touching the strings and break out in my best NY English.... I was lucky, they are dangerous as hades ungrounded with a guitar or mic, make sure you fix that.
Even if they are not repairable or useful for guitar and if they are not collectors items, which might be better to sell, some had 12ax7s, and may have some really nice e.g. RCAs in there, which could be used in a guitar amp.... best way to get telefunken ecc83s over here, is from old home audio equipment which has been thrown away.
Edit, lol sorry just noticed, Belgium, so less RCA, more Telefunken/Brimar/Mullard/Valvo/Phillips/Siemens.. some European home audio units also used el84s
Last edited by HHudson; November 1st, 2011 at 10:02 AM.
I have always wanted to do that. My wife's sister and husband have an old console radio form the 30's just sitting in their beach house. I asked if I could have the guts to use for an amp. They refused. I guarantee they'll never try and have that thing fixed.
I have an old Webcor that I am going to remodel into a practice head. It currently has a couple of little speakers in it and sounds great with a harp although a little tinny for guitar. I found one that looks really good on the internet and I think I will model mine after it.
__________________ "Everything louder than everything else!"
I had heard that McGuinn got that bright jangly 12 string sound on The 5th Dimension album by plugging his guitar into an old radio, miking it then running it either into the board or a blond fender bandmaster.
right now my expectations aren't very high
i'll be a happy man if i'll find anything that still works and has some sort of input and output thing
and if i won't get killed in the process of getting it to work
but if there are hidden treasures in there i'm sure we'll be able to work something out
old radio amp
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It has been in the plans for years now. Just never got around to doing it.
