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Vintage-look tube socket mounting hardware?

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  • Vintage-look tube socket mounting hardware?

    On some vintage amps I've worked on, the tube sockets were originally mounted to the chassis with metal eyelets or grommets--not sure what to call them. There's a hole through the center, as opposed to solid rivets.

    I've used pop rivets or screws when replacing tube sockets on these, but on some amps, I've thought it would be nice to make it look as original as possible. The thing is, I have no idea where to source these fasteners if they're still available. Most of these eyelets/grommets I've run across fit into a 7/64" hole in the chassis.

    I sourced some brass eyelets once and tried to use those, but they weren't anywhere near as strong as the originals and weren't suitable.

    Anyone know a source for these?

  • #2
    "I sourced some brass eyelets once and tried to use those, but they weren't anywhere near as strong as the originals and weren't suitable."
    Not sure what you mean by not strong enough,but if you mean the socket is loose with the rivets you used,perhaps you didnt hit them hard enough to make them tight.I would think the originals were put in place with some sort of "machine" rather by hand.I have used the eyelets for making tag boards and can see that it would be difficult to get them extremely tight in a chassis using the "hand held punch used for the tag boards.Watts tube audio has a selec tion of different sized eyelets for the tag boards,take a look and see if can use those.Watts Tube Audio ~ Everything Tube Amps!

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    • #3
      I agree with Stokes, it sounds like the fasteners you have seen were swaged into place using a press. Do you have any front/back images of these eyelets? I stumbled upon these. Looks like you can get these and hand tooling for around 50 bucks. They also have other tooling for "automatic" equipment, but that could probably be fitted to an arbor press to give manual operation.

      https://grommetmart.com/products/40/...n-washers.html
      https://grommetmart.com/products/62/...in-washer.html
      -Mike

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