Getting broken guitars and tube amps.

[MeCayden]

Hey everyone,

I am a member over at strat-talk forum. I tried to ask a question over there but no one offered any input..... so strat talk and music electronics forum user rhgwynn suggested I try asking you guys

Sooo anywayyysss.......


I'm pretty new to guitar and amplifier hardware, repair, and modding but I really want to get into it.
I am handy and know my way around electronics pretty well, I have no doubt that I will be capable to fix and change guitars... and I'm %85 sure I will be able to fix amps (at least most problems).
So I put an ad on Kijiji last night asking for broken guitars and tube amps and I will pay a small sum to anyone who gives me their stuff.


Sooooo do you guys this strategy will work? Have any of you tried it? If you don't think it will work, what do you think is a good way to get guitars and parts for next to nothing?


Thanks guys,
MeCayden

[Steve Conner]

If you heckle long and hard enough at a gig, you might get one hurled at your head. Musicians are a thrifty bunch, but it can't hurt to try.

The classic cheap way into tube amps is to get a tube console stereo, radio, organ amp or PA amp, and modify it into a guitar amp. This is harder than ever nowadays as we are gripped by retro madness, anything with tubes in it is cool. But you can still find such things now and again in thrift stores or at the dump.

[big_teee]

Hey everyone,

I am a member over at strat-talk forum. I tried to ask a question over there but no one offered any input..... so strat talk and music electronics forum user rhgwynn suggested I try asking you guys

Sooo anywayyysss.......


I'm pretty new to guitar and amplifier hardware, repair, and modding but I really want to get into it.
I am handy and know my way around electronics pretty well, I have no doubt that I will be capable to fix and change guitars... and I'm %85 sure I will be able to fix amps (at least most problems).
So I put an ad on Kijiji last night asking for broken guitars and tube amps and I will pay a small sum to anyone who gives me their stuff.


Sooooo do you guys this strategy will work? Have any of you tried it? If you don't think it will work, what do you think is a good way to get guitars and parts for next to nothing?


Thanks guys,
MeCayden

Keep an eye on Craigs list, or local classified listings, for your area.
I guess there is Craigs List in Canada?
for Guitars, you can buy some pretty good quality cheap stuff, from Rondo.
They have lot's of Lefty stuff also.
http://www.rondomusic.com/
T

[MeCayden]

Keep an eye on Craigs list, or local classified listings, for your area.
I guess there is Craigs List in Canada?

Yes there is.

I will check craigslist, but do you thing my strategy will work at all?

[big_teee]

Yes there is.

I will check craigslist, but do you thing my strategy will work at all?

Not sure what your trying to accomplish?
To gather up broken instruments, and amps, for yourself.
Or are you trying to get customers to fix their amps and instruments?

[MeCayden]

Not sure what your trying to accomplish?
To gather up broken instruments, and amps, for yourself.
Or are you trying to get customers to fix their amps and instruments?

Sorry I wasn't clear.
I am trying to gather up broken guitars and amps for myself.
I want to fix the amps.
And upgrade, fix, and switch around the guitars.

[bob p]

This is a pretty good thread on a similar subject:

http://music-electronics-forum.com/t5223/#post41711

[bob p]

Here's what I've said before on the subject:

I'd say that its always cheaper to buy an amp and more fun to build one.

IME building amps one at a time is for people who are looking for a hobby to occupy their time, not for a way to save money.

[MeCayden]

Here's what I've said before on the subject:

I'd say that its always cheaper to buy an amp and more fun to build one.

IME building amps one at a time is for people who are looking for a hobby to occupy their time, not for a way to save money.

Thanks for your help.
But I'm not really interested in building amps (not yet anyway), I want to be fixing and upgrading guitars and amps.

[madkatb]

To go along with what Steve Connor said there's this article by R. G. Keen ( who's also usually posting on this forum).
Converting Integrated/PA Tube Amps into Guitar Amps.
Just to let you know, I saw your listing on Kijiji and we live in the same area. There's not a lot of stuff, tube or guitar-wise, passing through the local thrift stores or flea markets. Your best bet is probably Kijiji but you won't be finding much for "next to nothing".

[eschertron]

As a hobbyist, fixing amps is a *lot* like building amps (that is to say, time intensive and expensive), but with the added headache of trying to determine what's wrong with a box that the current owner may know nothing about. It's great when you luck into some old lady's trash that happens to contain a dusty, but working old amp. These boards are full of those stories.

I'm kind of skeptical of the idea that someone can lure these hidden gems out into the open - not without spending a whole lotta cash in venture capital. But try it, there are many tube devices out there that *should* see the light of day. I'd certainly want you to have them if the alternative is that they end up in a landfill.

[Enzo]

If you go visiting yard sales all over the place you may find some useful stuff for little money. As soon as you call out you are looking for something, people realize it has value, at least to you. The price goes up.

There are gems to be found, just as there are winning lottery tickets. And just as those tickets, most found stuff is junk. If you found a dead amp in my shop, it would be because it needed more in repair than it was worth. Dead transformer for an amp that sells for $50 is pretty much a do not fix sentence.

Sometimes when school years end and college students leave town, you might find amps in the trash. But you may have better luck finding an old Bogen "PA amp" like an old school building would have in the office. Those are not hard to convert to guitar amps.

Guitars, well, unless they are actually broken, usually just have a dead pickup or a bad control of a wire loose, oh or a jack, and guys fix them. You might find one out in the rain, but I never have.

I know where you are coming from. SO many of us started electronics as scroungers. For me it was the 1950s and I'd go behind the local TV repair place and find dead TVs in the trash. I went with my screwdriver and took the chassis out of them, hauled them home and laboriously removed all the parts from them to build up my parts drawers. Ah the beauty and symmetry of a 1B3 tube still to this day makes me misty.

[bob p]

SO many of us started electronics as scroungers. For me it was the 1950s and I'd go behind the local TV repair place and find dead TVs in the trash. I went with my screwdriver and took the chassis out of them, hauled them home and laboriously removed all the parts from them to build up my parts drawers.

I fit that description, having grown up during the Golden Era of Scrounging, the 1970s. Lucky me -- I started scrounging during that magical period when people were unloading perfectly good tube gear because Solid State electronics were "the way of the future." People upgraded to solid state because it was the latest and greatest electronics fad item, not because it was any better than tube gear. In the 1970s you could always find a decent tube TV or tube amplifier being abandoned or being sold for peanuts because they were no longer wanted because they were old-tech. It's very much like the case today where people are giving away CRT PC monitors and CRT televisions because everyone wants a flat panel display. We all know that there's nothing wrong with the CRT TV or CRT monitor, but people are willing to throw them away just because they want something new.

If you're looking for a cheap/free CRT TV or a CRT monitor, then you're in luck -- *THIS* is the Golden Age for acquiring that type of free stuff. People are giving the stuff away on Freecycle and Craigslist, and the Goodwill stores are full of them.

OTOH, if you're looking for anything with vacuum tubes in it, that supply of used gear is long gone. That stuff was all discarded and scrounged away in the 1970s and 1980s. What wasn't cleared away during that time underwent a second phase of purging in the 1990s with the advent of eBay. eBay was a great source for this stuff once upon a time, as it connected willing buyers with remote stockplies of good gear, at a time when shipping costs were inexpensive. Fast forward to today and all of the good stuff is gone. What's left on eBay right now is mostly junk that nobody wants.

If you're looking for used tube gear for restoration, today you need to be prepared to pay for it. Tube gear has gone beyond being something that nobody wants any more. Now it's old enough and sufficiently retro to be collectable and in demand. It's gotten to the point that anyone who's got an old piece of tube junk thinks that they've got something special that's worth money just because it's old tube junk.

The Golden Era for the abandonment of Tube Gear was 20-30 years ago. Today you're arriving late to a party after everyone has already gone home. Even the junk on eBay is overpriced now. There aren't any good deals out there any more because everyone and his brother has caught onto the idea of modifying an old Masco PA head into a lunchbox-type guitar amp.

IMO there's no sense in trying to harvest a field after the swarm of locusts has already eaten everything and moved on, but I still drive around with a toolbox in my car just in case I find something interesting on the roadside. Old habits die hard.

[bob p]

As a hobbyist, fixing amps is a *lot* like building amps (that is to say, time intensive and expensive), but with the added headache of trying to determine what's wrong with a box that the current owner may know nothing about. It's great when you luck into some old lady's trash that happens to contain a dusty, but working old amp. These boards are full of those stories.

You understood the point that I was trying to make -- that finding and fixing up broken amps isn't as cost effective a way to get into having a collection of amps as we're inclined to think it is. Why? Fixing amps is definitely harder than building new amps from scratch. Why? Because fixing a broken amp involves developing and deploying skills in troubleshooting, while kit building only requires that you hook up an assembly of working parts. If amp building is hard, amp repairing is going to be all that much harder, and a less cost-effective use of one's time. It's a great idea for a hobby to consume your time if that floats your boat. It definitely floats a lot of boats around here.

To succeed in fixing up either broken guitars or broken amps, you need to develop a skill that allows you to cross over the barrier to entry that keeps everyone else out. That barrier to entry is knowing how to fix something that nobody else knows how to fix, and starting off with a sunk-cost that's as close to zero as you can get.

As an example of this, I recently tried to acquire a DOA Ampeg SVT head from someone who thought that his dead gear was something special and something valuable. After all, a working SVT can easily sell for $1000. But a busted-up SVT isn't worth anywhere near close to that -- or half of that. Once you factor in the cost of parts and labor to repair it, it's easy to understand why DOA amps should have near zero value. The problem is that most owners of DOA gear aren't willing to separate from their gear for the fair market value of something that's DOA, because nobody wants to admit when their amp has been constructively totalled.

On those rare occasions where someone understands what a constructive total really means, you end up hearing internet tales about how someone "scored" an SVT for $300. When these stories get told people tend to leave out the true cost of repairing the amp, and they always seem to discount the value of the technician's expertise and time that are required to effect the repair. When you factor in those costs, a $300 sunk cost is still pretty expensive if you have to pay for parts AND pay a technician to spend hours of time effecting the repair. Although it can be a decent deal for someone with troubleshooting skills who wants to tackle a complex repair job, the repairs are never really cost effective once you factor in the amount of time that you spend on the project. This is exactly why I just passed on an inexpensive DOA SVT and decided to buy one in good working condition with a 30 day return period. Sometimes repairing an amp isn't the great deal you'd hope it to be, and you're better off buying something that just works the way it's supposed to.

YMMV, of course.

[thehoj]

But you may have better luck finding an old Bogen "PA amp" like an old school building would have in the office. Those are not hard to convert to guitar amps.

Unfortunately people seem to be starting to hike the prices up on Bogen stuff too.. It's really annoying. That being said my learning amp was a Bogen Challenger CHB-35A, and I must say it was an excellent learning tool.. I tore that thing apart and rebuilt it a dozen times, tried all kinds of things with it. If you can find an old PA amp that works it's definitely the way to go.
I recently found a Traynor YVM-1 PA amp for $200 in working shape, I consider that to be a pretty good deal these days. Just gotta do a ton of searching and keep your eyes open everywhere.

The way I found the amp was doing an advanced google search, I enter the keywords I'm interested in and to search the domain kijiji.ca.. So finding the YVM-1 I searched YVM-1 on kijiji.ca. Like this https://www.google.ca/search?as_q=tr...MYubyAHPzoGQDA I found a guy in BC selling one for $200 and I convinced him to ship it to me. That way it searches all areas, not just the area I live in. Maybe you could have some success doing that. Actually the YVM-1's seem to be pretty rare, but there seem to be a lot of Traynor YBA-1's selling for a pretty decent price.. I've found a few in the $300 range, which if the amp is working is actually a pretty good deal.

Here's a YBA-4 http://ontario.kijiji.ca/c-buy-and-s...AdIdZ503574592

Garnet amps for that matter too.. Here's one that would probably be a nice starting point http://winnipeg.kijiji.ca/c-buy-and-...AdIdZ479023361