30 Days of Creativity - #26

Fixing Up a "Vintage" Stereo

My daughter bought a Wards portable stereo record player at an estate sale for $20. It is very similar to the 1964 GE 300 pictured at antiqueradios.com, so I m guessing it is from the same era. We tested it and it played pretty well. Talk about fun! Hearing some of my old albums after decades (yes decades) was just fantastic.

Figure 1. Circa 1960's Wards Airline Stereophonic Record player

There is a problem. Every so often one of the channels cuts out. Sometimes it's the left, sometimes it's the right—only when playing records. The radio never has this problem. Besides that, there were some cosmetic issues.

I was able to do the following:

(1) Replaced a stripped screw in the top handle so it can actually be carried by the handle now.
(2) Glued some loose grill cloth back in place on one of the speakers.
(3) Made new foot (one was missing) out of a new rubber foot. Sawed the new foot to the proper height using a hack saw.
(4) Glued on a piece of the vinyl covered chip board that had been knocked loose from one corner.
(5) Opened the electronics bay and sprayed some electronics cleaner into the pots and switches on the outside chance that dirt was causing the intermittent channel signal loss.

Figure 2. It's solid state man!

Figures 1 and 2 show this unit after those repairs. It still cuts out once in awhile. Quickly flipping between the radio and phono modes using the front panel switch will sometimes jolt it back into normal operation. One of these days I will delve deeper into the electronics. I still think there is a good a chance a more thorough cleaning will solve the problem.



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30 Days of Creativity - #18-#19

Home Made Guitar Pickups

I have been interested in cigar box instruments for awhile now. Actually I have always been interested in found object as instruments. Once I recorded a song called "Robotics Man" that featured sounds from power tools and some beeps made by touching the ends of a pair multimeter leads together. That was decades ago!

I got it into my mind to make a cigar box instrument  after seeing one that the aforementioned nephew was working on. I also remember seeing John-Alex Mason play one he had made (this was a couple of years ago), and I recall him describing how he made his own pickup for it. I figured if I was going to make my own cigar box guitar, it would be cool and educational to make a pickup too.

You can't make a pickup unless you know how to get started, so my output for today and tomorrow consisted of researching how to make one (maybe a half hour each day?). I found the following resources helpful, although I haven't decided exactly how to proceed.

Make a Guitar Pickup (Instructable)

Make Your Own Electric Guitar Pickup

How to Make  a Humbucking Pickup for Guitar (The Hard Way!)

I'll admit I haven't actually made a guitar pickup even as of the end of 2010, but I have scrounged up most of the materials over time, including a roll of magnet wire I got at an estate sale for $1, so it is on my list of things to do! I think the best place to get neodymium magnets is either eBay or KJ Magnetics. Amazon sells some too.

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