The electric guitars nearest kin requests you stop killing off our family members:)

[Chuck H]

Forget the organs, we need talk about squeezeboxes!

Hm... I don't think we should just kick the organs out to make room for the squeezeboxes. I've always known organs and squeezeboxes to do well together.

[Paulj0557]

Yeah well, I have too many amplifiers as it is, and I have several more juke boxes than I have room for. You ARE also saving jukeboxes aren't you? They certainly are an important part of Americana. I'd have to find a new home for at least one of my jukes to make room for one of these beasties. As to easy to repair? Well, as far as I know, it still requires getting down on the floor and then getting BACK UP, not easy. A lady brought me over a beloved piece of furniture - her console AM/FM/record player. All tubes. I had to give it back to her, I just could not get down on my knees on the cement floor to work on it. We are all saving console radios too, aren;t we?

I'm talking about a musical instrument. It doesn't matter when or how it was made. I don't care about the nostalgia of it. It's about the texture of the tone, the response, the way the design results in better sounding music. Of course if the player/listener is not that particular about these things then any old keyboard with 24 bits will do. Please, nostalgia give me a break.

[bluto]

Interesting thread for me as I've recently been given two old Hammonds. I'd never hack up one that CURRENTLY has real value to a musician or hobbyist but these did not. The first was a K model, NOT tonewheel, not working well and had no value but yielded an excellent amp (AO-68, 2 x 7591). The other one was a tonewheel L series model (AO-43 amp, 2 x EL84) but had been stored outside and was in very poor condition, no way in hell anyone would restore it...it still felt bad hacking up a tonewheel organ but a quick look on Craigslist and Ebay confirmed that there are plenty out there in good shape that are worth saving and only cost a few hundred bucks.
FWIW I did resist the temptation to turn an old Sherwood 4 x EL84 hifi amp into a guitar amp...only paid $10 but it worked perfectly and was beautifully made so I sold it to a hifi guy on Ebay and used the proceeds to buy some beat up old nonworking PA amps and did not feel guilty about converting them for guitar use...but could not bring myself to do that to the Sherwood.

[The Dude]

......and don't forget, to keep your organ in top shape, you must lubricate it regularly.

[Chuck H]

I thought this was a gag!?! Is this a real product sold specifically for 'lubricating organs'? Awesome!

[The Dude]

I thought this was a gag!?! Is this a real product sold specifically for 'lubricating organs'? Awesome!

Keepin' it real......Also trying to save you from the trouble of Googling "organ lube".

[Enzo]

That is the industrial size. When I was at the music store I used to sell the tubes of Hammond Oil in my shop. 1 ounce tubes, I think they came 50 to a case. Little old ladies came to my counter asking for "organ oil". We sold them for $1.50

As a joke, I'd always tell them "$1.50 or three for $5." Just to see who would bite. ALmost everyone went for it. No, I never took anyone's money like that, I always admitted it was a joke.


Hammond oil is a super light oil, and using something like 3in1 oil will gum up the tonewheels. There are a couple filler cups in the back, you are to fill the cup and stop. Some people tried to fill the oil cup until it no longer took oil. But since the cup drained into a track with wick down into the bearings, all that happened was you made pools of oil on the floor under the organ.


Those tubes of Hammond oil were long, like 9 inches. Leslie speakers also had tubes of oil, maybe half as long. it was just oil for the motor bearings. Some lady came in for Hammond oil one day, which I sold her, then she wanted a tube of Leslie oil too. I told her ther was nothing special about Leslie oil. She could use some Hammond oil or any like machine oil. She was having none of it. Got mad at me, ran off to the store manager to complain that I "refused" to sell her Leslie oil. He came to me wondering why I wouldn;t sell her the oil, so I explained we didn;t stock it, as it was just common machine oil. End of the day, no one was happy until I special ordered some oil that said Leslie on the side. There you go lady, you won.

[Leo_Gnardo]

Hm... I don't think we should just kick the organs out to make room for the squeezeboxes. I've always known organs and squeezeboxes to do well together.

Well now that you've brought up ACCORDIANS . . . (aka squeezeboxes) . . . shall we also avoid plugging guitars or anything else into the accordion inputs on old Ampeg amps? Set aside rare Sano and Sonola amps for accordion-only use please? Will the MEMMIS platform support, or even promote, the return of fine, entertaining accordion music? Holy Lady of Spain! What next. Not the future I signed up for. Don't worry I'll make the best of it. When the accordion bands take over, I'll find myself a nice old tuba and join up. They'll be needing some Oom-pah-pah to augment the bass.

[The Dude]

We sold them for $1.50. As a joke, I'd always tell them "$1.50 or three for $5." Just to see who would bite. ALmost everyone went for it. No, I never took anyone's money like that, I always admitted it was a joke.

I once did the same sort of thing with band shirts announcing from stage, "15 bucks a piece or 3 for $50". This drunk bimbo caught me on break and was insistent that she get the "3 shirt deal". I explained to her that it was only a joke and that it would only be $45. Obviously not paying much attention to what I was saying, she still insisted that she get "the deal". I literally could not get her to see daylight as much as I tried. I gave her the shirts and $15 change for three 20's. She didn't know the difference. I could have ripped her off, but I also could have gotten my ass kicked by her 6 boyfriends after they figured out the joke- not worth the risk. I still have a chuckle every time I think of her.

[g1]

As a joke, I'd always tell them "$1.50 or three for $5." Just to see who would bite. ALmost everyone went for it.

At a shop I worked at, we had a counter guy who would reply straight faced, when asked about warranty, "30 days or 30 feet, whichever comes first". We would wait to see who caught it, not that many did. Of course we always honored the 30 days .

[gui_tarzan]

Well, as far as I know, it still requires getting down on the floor and then getting BACK UP, not easy.

Amen to that. I can still eek out the motivation to get down and remove those tube amps & speakers though. I wish I could, but I can't play piano/organ so I look for the dirt-cheap or free tube organs. I have the parts from one going in a custom 5F6-A clone right now and the manual says the 15" Jensen is rated at 40w so I should have a nice sounding amp when I get it done. That's more important to me than "saving" an organ nobody wants.