Tom Mobley

Andy, the finish was really nasty old yellowed varnish, the WAF was was in the toilet. I decided to completely refinish them. Also, while I was installing the woofers I discovered the guy had left out the little wing pieces altogether. So I made a decision to pull the backs and put them in, this also makes it easier to refinish the boxes. The backs were glued and screwed on, it was non-trivial process to remove them without really tearing things up. 60 and 30 is right, my neighbor across the street has an old but very nice Craftsman belt drive table saw, he helped me make them. I made them from the same 3/4" oak plywood I made the front panels from, they're OK. I got tired of screwing around with old finish today, sanding it off with 120 on a DA air sander was just too slow, went over to HD and rented a belt sander, 4x24 belt, heavy thing. Used 120 belt, blew off the old finish from the tops, sides, backs and bottoms in a couple hours. Wood-eatin' S-O-B, that thing is. Gotta be real careful with using it. After the massacre was over I used the air DA again with 320, they tuned out pretty slick. I didn't like how dark they got with two coats of the Tung oil or two of the clear satin poly, so I tried some of that conditioner stuff. seems to help some, and the grain patterns didn't get nearly so dark, I'll probably use it and Tung oil. Tung oil doesn't call for sanding between coats. Tom

HDBR, Thanks for taking time to write up that stuff. A lot of typing. I pulled the back off one of the speakers to install the little wing pieces that run from the corners of the 3x13" slot to the corners of the motorboard. I used it for a sample or trial piece, one side I sanded the finish off, the other side I used the stripper and scraper, then sanded. The scraper is tricky, I made little tiny line gouges where I wasn't careful enough using it. I went out tonight to HD and bought Minwax Tung oil and Minwax clear satin polyurethane, did half the back with each. Only one coat so far, but right now I would have a hard time telling which is which if I didn't already know. Seems crazy, they're not really similar products. Both of them are darkening the wood much more than I had hoped. I don't know how to retain the blondish/whitish character of the sanded oak. Looks like it might take just spraying with clear lacquer or something. Did you ever post a pic of your finished units? I'd like to see how they turned out. Wish I had the money to buy a set. Tom Thanks again for taking for that write-up, very informative.

FYI, my Eico schematic specifically notes that the test values given are at 117V, FWIW. My line voltage at my reasonably recent house and neighborhood is 117, I never see it more than a volt different from that. Kelly, did you decide to send that assembly manual? I got my trusty HP scanner fired up. Tom

Builder, What is your current favorite urethane? I finished my HDBR's back in 81 or so, used Varathane brand which still looks great, but there's been a lot of water under the bridge in the wood finishing industry since then, what is a well thought of brand now? I'm sanding all the old finish off my DIY LaScalas, it's no more work than stripper altogether. I used stripper on one of the backs just to see, it was a lot of work scraping and I can still smell the stuff on the wood, means there's still some there, right? Don't want any of that under the finish. I won't say what I'm using to sand, you'd probably throw up or something. Tom

I've went to great Plains Audio twice now and all I see is Altec-Lansing stuff. Am I missing something? That place in Florida has them, I wonder if they're actual EV parts or something they're producing? $22, that's attractive, about what EV is asking, if they had them. Tom

Hmpf, I bought a pair of EV T-35B's on ebay with one blown diaphragm, called up EV to order more and they're back-ordered 3 weeks. bummer. I've been told the Klipsch parts are the same but like $50 more apiece. Almost four times as much. Guess I'll wait. Tom

Sent, via the profile email gizmo here. Tom

Send it to me, I'll do it. Fifty pages not that big a deal. I've got a nice HP scanner. Give me a good excuse to get it cranked up again. I'll park it up on my space, you can fulfill all those deep longings in your email with hardly any effort at all.... Tom (how is it bound? loose leaf? sewn?)

kelly, I would love to have a copy of the Eico manual. I've been trying to figure out a way to acquire it, you are the first person I've seen that had it. I have a BB connection and can DL like crazy, especially at night. Can you put it up somewhere or email it? If I had it I'd be willing to host it for others who might be interested. I've got a few hundred meg space available on a decent connection. Tom tmoble@earthlink.net

audio flynn, Your son will rise and bless you in your old age. I admire and respect you for working with him on what he can do instead criticizing him for what he can't do. I was on the wrong end of that kind of deal once, now my family can't seem to understand why I live in the opposite corner of the continent from them. There's a good chance your son will grow out of that deal someday like my little brother did. I've always been considered exceptionally gifted in the hands on, mechanical field but he's a genuine genius, he just couldn't read or write. Unfortunately our family was not particularly benign in this area and he grew up in sort of a private hell. Had he a father like you he probably wouldn't have wasted half his life drinking (suicide on the installment plan)(me too). he's better now but it's been a long tough road for him to overcome the negativity that was dumped on him as a child. Every minute you spend with your son now will be treasured later, even by his children who will find in him what he's now seing in you. Jeez, maybe I'll apply for a job at Hallmark or something. Tom

Ain't technology wonderful? I actually printed out a doc and walked it down to the first floor the other day because our email servers were all hosed. And this is in an enterprise level data center. Jeez. Tom

edster, I am going to send you the email address I've been using for him, we've been trading a few lately. He did have some kind of email issue awhile back. I'm going to send it to you via the email option here on the board. Tom

Man, that's a nice looking piece, you can see reflections on the chassis. What was the BIN price? Was the BIN price $45 or lower? I emailed that graybeard51 guy, asked him if he's a member here. Tom

Erik, I put it back in the box and put it up on a high shelf. But, it's where I can see it now. I just don't have time and resources to go off into the vinyl deal now. I still need to get my LS's finished and I've got a bunch of new parts for the Eico. I bought a new vol pot from AES, along with a shaft extender, cool. But, then I notice that it's got a 1/4" shaft and the Eico's are 3/16". So off to one of my buddies who has a lathe, turn it down to 3/16". He also has a gorgeous genuine Bridgeport mill, must have been made in the 60's but looks like new. I'll use that to make the flat side, it'll look like it was made that way. I cut a bunch of pistons on it awhile back, it's dead nuts true. This thing is the machinist's equivilant of the Scott Pat got the other day. Tom

kh, here's the relevant part of the email from 10/24, it was sent to an earthlink.net address along with followup a couple weeks later: ********************************************** See if you can find some oil caps in the right values for the networks, we might be able to whip up a set of B's. The inductors aren't that expensive and neither are the transformers. The 3691 transformers he *(Al)* had built are about $25 apiece. If you could promote the caps somehow the inductors aren't that much and I've got the minor hardware already. I've got a real nice set of 77 Heresies I bought new, never abused, got the nice drivers, ideal test bed, easy to work with. See what you can come up with. ******************************************** I guess you're right, there's no outright offer here. Also, at that time I didn't know about the previous dealings you had with Al on the stuff. Anyway, that offer is still open if you're interested. I thought it was a good offer for you particularly because you could provide whatever caps you felt would be best in this situation. The reason I offered was because I was and am grateful for knowledge you've freely provided here. I would not have had the impetus to buy and fix up the Eico had you not been doing your thing here. Also, as an aside, the "re-issue the Eico" project still has life left in it. I know some guys in the sheet metal fab business, they see the chassis and and panels as trivially easy to produce. I bought a Sam's photofact when I was at AES getting caps, it de-mystified a lot of the circuitry and the parts list is handy too. I no longer have much doubt that the deal is do-able, but informed decisions have to be made about how much of the functionality and appearance would be worthwhile to duplicate as these would affect final cost. An HF-81 kit sold for about $70, translates to about $300 now. Tom

I was surprised too, but mine work great, even with my uneducated ears and damaged hearing I can hear the diff easily. It's cool. As far as forum members go I offered to build mobile homeless a pair of B's but never heard back from him. Tom

Ryan, Good info. You'd be more than welcome to stop by over at Chevelle Tech Forums some time. Lots of good guys over there, and loads of Chevelle experience. Check out the Engine section, along with Performance. Tom

that balance pot has 160K on one side and 120K on the other when centered. That seems like a lot of resistor to cut out of a circuit, especially a circuit that only as a volt or two in it. Anybody else do this? How about I pick up a couple quality 100Ks and install them? Worse, the vol pot is really jacked. when it's at a low level like I usually play it's 2.6K on side and 1.2K on the other. It's going. Thanks for your input, Tom

(Hmmmm....These two guys hitting on the same thing? It got me thinking.) it is suspicious, has anybody seen these guys in the same room together? My hf-81 will take something 3" tall under the cage, I ordered one from AES here in town along with two 40 and one 20 Sprague. One way or another I'll get it hooked up. That balance pot has significant amount of resistance in the neutral position, I'm still at work but will update with the measurment when I get home tonight. Tom

mobile, thanks for taking time to look this stuff up. I looked at Angela but didn't find that one you found. The schematic calls for a "250K" pot but the one(s) in there only go up to about 125K. I ordered a pot from AES yesterday afternoon along with a can cap and some other stuff. They had a can cap that's 40-20-20-20, I can strap together two of the 20's to make a 40, also picked up a pair of Sprague 40's and a 20, one way or another I'll get rid of that hum. I'm going to order up both of the ones you found, try them all to see what works best. I'll re-measure the resistance of the balance pot to see what it has at center, IIRC it was non-trivial. Thanks again for taking time to help here. Tom (not interested in those B nets, huh?)

Craig, Got any ideas on this question I had earlier? "Craig, if bypassing the balance control wouldn't a guy need to install a couple resistors with value equal to what the stock control has when centered? Or something like that?" These would be dead center in the signal path, right? What type of resistor would be suitable? Tom

Ahhh, yes. I remember now: Due to the crowded conditions at the precinct polling places, this year the Republicans vote Tuesday, Democrats vote Wednesday. Next year it will be reversed again..... Tom

yeah, those look exactly like the crossovers in my 77 HDBR's. Sealed cabinet, the crossovers stay nice-looking. When I get my LS's refinished and moved into the house I'm going to be where this guy is. I don't need the Heresy's anymore, no room for them, sell them for 400-450 or part them out for more, maybe quite a bit more? I wouldn't feel good taking those things apart, I'll tell you. I bought them new in 77, I managed to hang on to them through several life disasters and changes. It will be interesting to see what all the parts go for. Tom

Oh, really. It goes in the original case? I didn't know that. I looked at their site awhile back, looks like you can get about anything there. I wonder what kind of quality they are, the Sprague's would only cost about $15. I'm going to be over in the east valley, I think I'll stop by AES and see what they've got. I need a volume control, the one I've got has substantially different resistance between the two side. The balance control isn't so hot either. Craig, if bypassing the balance control wouldn't a guy need to install a couple resistors with value equal to what the stock control has when centered? Or something like that? Tom

Uh-oh. "This will likely be an expensive experiment once you discover how good it sounds and start wondering if better TT's and carts could sound even better!" This is exactly what I'm afraid of. Maybe I should accidentally run over it with the car or something before it's too late. kelly, I already hit the phono section with a set of used but nice Tele's and replaced the main caps with auricaps. Should help it a little. It's sounding better all the time but still has the hum. I bought a new Fluke meter and Craig was nice enough to spend some time on the phone with me going over all the voltages. All checked out good. The Fluke checked the .025 disc caps I replaced as .030's, so the .033's I put in are not far off. The original 30uf PS caps checked out at 35 instead so the 40 Spragues I put in were close too. The new Auricaps and Spragues check right on the money on the meter. One of my NOS Mullard 12AU7's was so microphonic it was unbelieveable. The vendor is replacing it now, good deal. I'm going to replace the can cap with discrete Spragues under the chassis, I think there's enough room for two 40s and a 20 under there. If that doesn't fix the hum I'm toast. Does anybody have any suggestions for a new volume control? the two sides of mine are not the same but I looked around some and haven't seen anything to replace it as far as the size and the long shaft. I'm going to bypass the balance control and replace the volume pot/s. kelly, did you ever get the two emails I sent you about the "B" nets? I was surprised to get no response at all. Tom