Maker Pro
Maker Pro

Fender Showman from 1963

N

N_Cook

Jan 1, 1970
0
Known history with this , from its purchase in Germany onwards, including
its original set of valves (not in there and used now, but will test out of
curiosity). What are the main potential safety/reliability issues with an
amp of this age? All the cotton covered wiring looks good but is there some
test/procedure more convincing as to insualting value? Bakelite brittleness
in the valve bases? metallurgical failure of springiness of valve
contacts?
Someone modified to 3 core mains cable and made an earth point, for 240V
land, at some point in its history. Numerous caps replaced in 1991 and 1997
and some carbon R replaced with MO at some point. I've not checked the main
caps yet.
 
M

Meat Plow

Jan 1, 1970
0
Known history with this , from its purchase in Germany onwards,
including its original set of valves (not in there and used now, but
will test out of curiosity). What are the main potential
safety/reliability issues with an amp of this age? All the cotton
covered wiring looks good but is there some test/procedure more
convincing as to insualting value? Bakelite brittleness in the valve
bases? metallurgical failure of springiness of valve contacts?
Someone modified to 3 core mains cable and made an earth point, for 240V
land, at some point in its history. Numerous caps replaced in 1991 and
1997 and some carbon R replaced with MO at some point. I've not checked
the main caps yet.

No known safety issues other than mains wiring. These were pretty
reliable amps. I own a 1970 Showman USA model. Someone tried to turn it
into a 100 watt model by replacing the iron and adding two octals to the
already blanked out chassis. I ripped all that stuff out and put new
output iron in it. It's not worth much but it does sound sweet.
 
N

N_Cook

Jan 1, 1970
0
Meat Plow said:
No known safety issues other than mains wiring. These were pretty
reliable amps. I own a 1970 Showman USA model. Someone tried to turn it
into a 100 watt model by replacing the iron and adding two octals to the
already blanked out chassis. I ripped all that stuff out and put new
output iron in it. It's not worth much but it does sound sweet.



Closer look and the cotton covering to the wiring between the output heaters
is "perished", crumbling to dust, and needs replacing. Strange having a load
of Mullard, Brimar and Z&I Aero valves to test
 
M

Meat Plow

Jan 1, 1970
0
Closer look and the cotton covering to the wiring between the output
heaters is "perished", crumbling to dust, and needs replacing. Strange
having a load of Mullard, Brimar and Z&I Aero valves to test

Since the heater wiring is twisted it would be a good idea to replace if
it is that poor of a state. I don't recall ever seeing the LV wiring in
any Fender of that era in that state and the state of all the wiring is
what I usually inspect first on any P2P wired vintage amp.
 
J

Jeff Layman

Jan 1, 1970
0
Closer look and the cotton covering to the wiring between the output heaters
is "perished", crumbling to dust, and needs replacing. Strange having a load
of Mullard, Brimar and Z&I Aero valves to test

Z&I Aero!!! I haven't heard that name for over 40 years. That was when
their shop in Tottenham Court Road was worth visiting, followed by a
stroll to Proops, and then onto Lisle Street. Are there any surplus
places worth visiting today?
 
N

N_Cook

Jan 1, 1970
0
Meat Plow said:
Since the heater wiring is twisted it would be a good idea to replace if
it is that poor of a state. I don't recall ever seeing the LV wiring in
any Fender of that era in that state and the state of all the wiring is
what I usually inspect first on any P2P wired vintage amp.


The conductor size, under the insulation, is only 0.7mm presumably not
enough for the current plus localised heating. Will replace with silicon
sleeved wire with "Refrasil" glass sleeving over that , dulled down with
dark green permanent ink felt tip pen, gives a very convincing contemporary
look, and surprisingly does not wipe off the glass
 
N

N_Cook

Jan 1, 1970
0
At least not best wiring practise, wires not looped thru tags (2 passes)
before soldering. Although original wiring , a 6L6 socket has been replaced
at some time. Did he swap around the wires and so the heater pinning is
different? . The original "push" pair have opposite polarity pinning for the
heaters of each but the "pull" pair, with the replaced socket, are same
"polarity". I'm inclined to replace the wiring with both pairs having
alternate polarity
 
N

N_Cook

Jan 1, 1970
0
Ron said:
Teleton SAQ-307! yes I had one o them. Marvelous amplifier, didn't it
have some unusual feature for it's day, slider control or something?
I had mine in my shop driving a stack consiting of a 15" Gauss in a
home made Altec Voice of the Theatre copy, a 12" Gauss VotT copy and a
whopping great Vitavox multicell horn (courtesy of the recently closed
local ODEON). No electronic crossovers in those days!
Even tho it was only a few watts, it could visibly make the shop window
shake in time to the music (Dark Side of the Moon - Most impressive)

Ron(UK)

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I had one of those from a local cinema, half the weight was the loose sand
fill between the cells
 
J

Jeff Layman

Jan 1, 1970
0
I still have a Z&I Aero (Zaerix) glossy covered catalogue / data book in
near pristine condition. It has data on lovely old things like VCR97
'scope tubes, and has all the prices in pounds, shillings and pence ! Oh
those lovely old days of skiving off school for the day and jumping on
the train to London to go to Tottenham Court Road and Lisle Street. Into
Henry's Radio .... I bought my first 'hifi' amplifier in Proops. It's a
Teleton SAQ-307. It's here in the computer room with me, and I'm looking
at it right now. Still works as good as the day it was bought. Only
about 8 watts per channel as I recall, but punched way above that
weight. It drives my EMI 13 x 8 cabs with 7 x 5 mids and Eagle dome
tweeters. The EMIs came from Henry's and the Eagles from Maplin I think,
but might have been Tandy (Radio Shack). I also have the matching
Teleton GT-203 tuner, and then the Nikko ND-790 cassette deck. Remember
those ? All together, it was the classic "poor man's" hifi rig of the
early 70s.

I think most of the wonderful old junk shops have pretty much gone now,
but I think that Anchor Supplies up in Nottingham is still going.
Remember AH Supplies ? They used to advertise every month in Practically
Witless magazine, and I bought a lot of ex WW2 radios like 19 sets and
an R1392 and a Wavemeter D from them. I have a feeling that they might
still be going in one form or another. I'm also pretty sure that
Birketts over in Lincoln somewhere are still going too. Then there was
John's Radio, and Bull Electrical. Happy days ... Blimey. I've just
looked up John's Radio, and they are still going !

I used to visit GWM in Worthing till they closed down in 2003. But I
didn't know they had simply moved. Some interesting stuff here:
http://gwmradio.netfirms.com/stocklistuk.html.

With regard to Z&IAero, in the early 70s I worked at a company where the
electronics guy was Polish. Somehow the subject of Z&I came up. He
said that Z&I were a front for a communist spy group! I Suppose
anything is possible, but how they made much money out of pile of dusty
and dirty ex-WWII (and earlier!) crap I don't know I actually bought an
ancient Cossor 3339 from them. It didn't work and I never got it
working. No doubt every capacitor was suspect as they would have been
30 or 40 years old by then, and heaven knows where it had been stored.
 
A

Archon

Jan 1, 1970
0
I still have a Z&I Aero (Zaerix) glossy covered catalogue / data book in
near pristine condition. It has data on lovely old things like VCR97
'scope tubes, and has all the prices in pounds, shillings and pence ! Oh
those lovely old days of skiving off school for the day and jumping on
the train to London to go to Tottenham Court Road and Lisle Street. Into
Henry's Radio ... I bought my first 'hifi' amplifier in Proops.
snip
Arfa

I'm surprised you didn't build the "Texan amplifier" sold by Henry's,

http://www.angelfire.com/sd/paulkemble/sound8h.html

I must have built 10 of those for me and my mates, then spent many happy
hours replacing the unprotected output transistors! They did sound good
cranked up (with a good heatsink)!

JC
 
N

N_Cook

Jan 1, 1970
0
Archon said:
I'm surprised you didn't build the "Texan amplifier" sold by Henry's,

http://www.angelfire.com/sd/paulkemble/sound8h.html

I must have built 10 of those for me and my mates, then spent many happy
hours replacing the unprotected output transistors! They did sound good
cranked up (with a good heatsink)!

JC


I hve a non-worker Texan on a shelf. Wood cased , slimline due to the
transformer form-factor. Unprotected from high dV/dt I remember, first time
I came across fridges blowing amps
 
N

N_Cook

Jan 1, 1970
0
Jeff Layman said:
I used to visit GWM in Worthing till they closed down in 2003. But I
didn't know they had simply moved. Some interesting stuff here:
http://gwmradio.netfirms.com/stocklistuk.html.


Not very convincing , some sort of legacy site?
"Page info " dates like 24 October 2003 13:55:48, and 24 October 2003
15:07:28, even for "New In" page info date 24 October 2003 14:43:53
I will try phoning to confirm -( isn't high tech marvelous) but
GWM Radio, 63 Victoria Road, Worthing
is indeed different to the Portland something address. I used to drop in,
going to Brighton
 
J

Jeff Layman

Jan 1, 1970
0
Not very convincing , some sort of legacy site?
"Page info " dates like 24 October 2003 13:55:48, and 24 October 2003
15:07:28, even for "New In" page info date 24 October 2003 14:43:53
I will try phoning to confirm -( isn't high tech marvelous) but
GWM Radio, 63 Victoria Road, Worthing
is indeed different to the Portland something address. I used to drop in,
going to Brighton

You're right. I didn't notice the 2003 dates!

But there was an interesting link to some European dealers on their
"Links" page. The link ended up somewhere else, but on that page it
pointed to http://home.kpn.nl/angrynine/surplus2.htm. One or two German
sites listed there were also in English. May be worth a browse sometime.
 
N

N_Cook

Jan 1, 1970
0
Jeff Layman said:
You're right. I didn't notice the 2003 dates!

But there was an interesting link to some European dealers on their
"Links" page. The link ended up somewhere else, but on that page it
pointed to http://home.kpn.nl/angrynine/surplus2.htm. One or two German
sites listed there were also in English. May be worth a browse sometime.



phone number is defunct. Looks like they moved in 2003 and closed in 2008.
I keep seeing ref to the Freidrikshaven radio rally on the RSGB rallies
page.
http://www.rsgb.org/events/index.php
How many Brits go there to buy junk ?
 
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