I need to stop going to the surplus store...

[Hardtailed]

My local surplus store is pretty nice...

Today I noticed they had some "NOS" Mallory orange drop caps, 0.068uF 630V, 0.10$ each... so I picked up a dozen
Figured they'd make nice coupling caps, or can be used to tweak tone stacks.

Also I needed some 100pF caps that would be more reliable than silver mica (I had one fail recently) to use as fizz caps or as snubber caps. So they had those odd blue little capacitors in 600V rating. 0.10$ each again!
Turns out, these "Ero KP" are quite praised in the hi-fi world apparently!

Good thing these things are cheap, cause I keep buying handfulls of small components every time I go there!

Got a bunch of ceramics in all kinds of value too, and two huge (220uF and 1000uF) electrolytics to try as cathode bypass caps on my 8W Baby Marshall.
The most expensive one (the 1mF) was 0.99$

[Axtman]

Where is that store located?

[Hardtailed]

Where is that store located?

You in the Montreal area?

It's Maddison on des Laurentides Blvd in Laval

They also have a huge selection of power resistors (cement blocks) in 5 to 25W ratings, so all the values I may want to try for power cathodes are available.
I built an attenuator with 4 different attenuation levels for about 20$ in parts.

Then my 2nd favorite store is KGE on the south-shore, where they have almost all of the Hammond guitar amp (1750 and 290) transformers line in stock!

[sportster4eva]

Man, I wish I had places like that in my neck of the woods.. I got nothing even remotely near me... Alas, I am forced to buy online..
Way to go man! I'd go there and buy a boatload, and give them out as gifts to my tube fanatic friends... lol!

[tedmich]

that's canadian money right? So even cheaper in US$!

many small purchases can placate the buying compulsion, but tends to fill the garage...

[mr.jetski]

hey wanna start a discount mail service? some have all the luck

[loudthud]

Surplus stores are a dying breed. There was one in Fort Worth Texas that was owned by an old guy that finally passed away. He had amassed a huge collection of stuff. Several warehouses probably totaling over 10,000 square feet. It was all packed up in dumpsters and shipped to China.

[scole]

i live near a place called edmunds scientific. they had boxes of pots and all kinds of gadgets. now i think thier strictly an online outfit.

[tedmich]

In PDX Tektronix surplus is amazing, in Seattle, Boeing Surplus was...old guys with tubes are rare but a great resource.

Anyone in Michigan who can get the 10c a bottle deposit?

[Enzo]

When I was a kid in Washington DC. I loved the surplus stores. There were a number of them. We are talking 50 years ago, and there was still tons of post-world war 2 stuff and Korean war stuff. All kinds of military electronics. One place I likes sold the equipment by the pound. Old radar display, patch panel, power suopply, you name it. Seems to me it was 10 cents a pound. 50 pound thing was $5. That was a lot to a kid then.

It was fun tearing down all that stuff. Some other places were a trifle more upscale, some stuff even worked. I found an old laboratory oscillator. Worked. It output at 1000cps - I can;t bring myself to say 1kHz - and it had several binding posts for various output levels. Wooden case, with knurl thumb screws to hold the side panels on. Inside was a large tuning fork driven by a tube circuit. After it got going, you could hear the fork vibrating. A pickup amplified the signal for use.

[dai h.]

I need to stop going to the surplus store...

noooooo you don't.

[tedmich]

When I was a kid in Washington DC. I loved the surplus stores. There were a number of them. We are talking 50 years ago, and there was still tons of post-world war 2 stuff and Korean war stuff. All kinds of military electronics. One place I likes sold the equipment by the pound. Old radar display, patch panel, power suopply, you name it. Seems to me it was 10 cents a pound. 50 pound thing was $5. That was a lot to a kid then.

It was fun tearing down all that stuff. Some other places were a trifle more upscale, some stuff even worked. I found an old laboratory oscillator. Worked. It output at 1000cps - I can;t bring myself to say 1kHz - and it had several binding posts for various output levels. Wooden case, with knurl thumb screws to hold the side panels on. Inside was a large tuning fork driven by a tube circuit. After it got going, you could hear the fork vibrating. A pickup amplified the signal for use.

Positive formative experiences can lead to a lifetime interest eh? Sadly as the US ceases to make anything, and landfills the disposo Asian products it imports at the end of their designed short lives, these experiences get rarer. Tearing things apart is apparently a vanishing art.

[Enzo]

I love tearing things apart. When I get bored or need something cathartic, I tear down an old unit. OLD VCRs are great, a million screws and all manner of mechanical parts. Great way to build up a collection of metric screws. Even a dead CD player offers a moment or two of fun. I always save the tiny motors - I don't know why. Maybe someday I will animate some little model diarama. But the power cord and transformer can be useful. I just had a Behringer one-space rack thing come through with a dead power transformer. FOund a suitable replacement in my dead CD player stuff pile, and off it went.

And recently I stripped an old TEAC reel to reel deck. OH an hour of joy. Hardware galore. meters to play with. multisection concentric shaft pots, motors (big ones)

I tore apart a computer printer not long ago. There was almost nothing in it. No AC cord, not many screws - it all snaps together. No controls. Fooey.