It rains it pours, or it's always something, etc

[Enzo]

Had a PV Delta Blues tonight. "No sound". Sure enough. FOund on both 10" speakers, the little thing on the frame that holds the terminals had popped free of its rivet and they dangle. Need to fix that. The speakers are mounted on threaded studs driven through the baffle from under the grille cloth on the front side. Naturally several of then just turned the thread stud and the nut won;t back off. get out my little 3/8 flat wrench and some heavy pliers on the narrowed end of the studs, and worked some of the nuts off. No access to a couple, so I had to remove the baffle to get at the rest. Pull the chassis and reverb bag to get the baffle out.

Got the speakers off, they test OK, ground off the old rivet and popped a new rivet into one. Too short, won;t cinch up. Grind off the new rivet, select a longer one and voila, nice and tight. Did the other. Brushed the 25 years of accumulated filth out of the amp cab. Mount the speakers, reversing the wrench process for the loose studs. Replace the baffle in the cab.

Chassis sure enough makes no sound. Fuses OK, has high voltage, no high voltage drop. NO lower voltages. Fuses OK.Measure at the 25vAC input, nothing there. Oh man, not a bad transformer... No, I could find it on the wires, but the IDC had failed. SO I snipped off the IDC and crimped on a couple KK156 pins and stuck them into an empty Molex housing I trimmed to two holes. Wires barely reach, oh well. close enough.

Maintenance, and clean as much dirt as my rag would remove from the panel. I must have two hours tied up in that baffle and speakers. AMp chassis works, no controls noisy. get me out of here, I thought I retired.

Some friends are bringing over an Oberheim OBxa that doesn't synthesize tomorrow. I am getting more work than when I was in business.

Maybe if I leave town...

[jmaf]

You can checkout any time you like, but you can never leave!

[J M Fahey]

Consider moving to a Tropical island.


Not safe enough?

Ok, consider a ***small*** Tropical island:

[g1]

Don't try telling people you're expensive and really slow to try to scare them off, it won't work.

[olddawg]

Don't try telling people you're expensive and really slow to try to scare them off, it won't work.

I have friends and relatives mail me stuff. A while back I had a family member mail me (from Missouri, I'm in CA) 2 early 60s car radios and ask me to make one working unit for the Impala he was restoring. It turned out to be the first all SS unit GM made so it was not without idiosyncrasies. This was in January and I work on crap like that on my bench in my garage. I was recovering from a respiratory illness and it gets cold even in CA in January. After 3 weeks he started grinding me about it. Send it back if I couldn't do it, etc. I told him, he could take it to a "specialty" shop but they would probably keep it 3 months and tell him parts were unavailable. Anyway.. When I could breath I fixed it in a day and sent it back. People have no comprehension of what we do. "Can't you just get a board?" Lol. I'm pretty selective about what I repair at home anymore. But you still get burned once and a while. Half the time I do it for parts for family members or starving musicians anyway.

[Leo_Gnardo]

After 3 weeks he started grinding me about it. Send it back if I couldn't do it, etc. I told him, he could take it to a "specialty" shop but they would probably keep it 3 months and tell him parts were unavailable.

I got into this bind all too often. I've learned to tell people before they get their hopes up "You see all those nice old TOTALLY rebuilt 'original parts' prize winning cars? Those guys get their radios fixed somewhere. Not here, that's for sure. You know how to get in touch with the owners of those prize winners, it's no trouble these days with Farcebook and all the rest. YOU reach out to THEM, get THEIR advice, send your radio THERE and PAY THE MAN. I'm not running a charity shop, get over it." Sometimes they follow through, and get the job done right. Sometimes they never talk to me again, which may be just as well; I can concentrate on the battles I can win.

Similar for folks who think I'm sitting around looking for other things to waste my time on. The last thing I need is to get lost inside a Klemt-Echolette or Binson EchoWreck or anything of the sort. Honest, I'd rather mow the lawn or scrape old paint or sort my socks, stuff that really needs doing.

[olddawg]

I got into this bind all too often. I've learned to tell people before they get their hopes up "You see all those nice old TOTALLY rebuilt 'original parts' prize winning cars? Those guys get their radios fixed somewhere. Not here, that's for sure. You know how to get in touch with the owners of those prize winners, it's no trouble these days with Farcebook and all the rest. YOU reach out to THEM, get THEIR advice, send your radio THERE and PAY THE MAN. I'm not running a charity shop, get over it." Sometimes they follow through, and get the job done right. Sometimes they never talk to me again, which may be just as well; I can concentrate on the battles I can win.

Similar for folks who think I'm sitting around looking for other things to waste my time on. The last thing I need is to get lost inside a Klemt-Echolette or Binson EchoWreck or anything of the sort. Honest, I'd rather mow the lawn or scrape old paint or sort my socks, stuff that really needs doing.

You might be surprised how few shops out there specialize in old car radio restoration... And how utterly incompetent they can be. After I did that one I had a dozen people contact me from several different states. I declined doing it because I am truly retired and didn't want to start a business. I had put a "break in" jack on that one radio so the guy could Velcro an MP3 player under the dash and play period local recorded radio broadcasts from the the year the car was made at car shows through the radio. If anyone is interested and has some compfortable space to do it, there is a decent nitch market opportunity. Just place an add in a trade paper or online site, they send you the radio, you fix it, send it back. You charge big bucks take it or leave it. Demand a money order before you return the piece, whatever. You also put a big disclaimer that you aren't responsible for speakers and wiring in the car, etc. For a younger man with the knowledge, space, and time... There is very decent money to be made in the car radio restoration nitch if you do it right. Like they say, "In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king!" I wouldn't take in anything past OEM 8 tracks though.

[Tom Phillips]

You might be surprised how few shops out there specialize in old car radio restoration...

I had an experience with and old car radio. It's explained in post #20 at http://music-electronics-forum.com/t32423/ so I won't repeat it here.

At least people have stopped asking me if I'll fix their VCR.

Tom

[Richard]

It's like the 80/20 rule: you make 80% of your profit on 20% of your work. If I could just get enough of the high profit stuff in, I'd be golden. Got to learn how to turn work down but I don't have quite enough to do that.

[Leo_Gnardo]

There is very decent money to be made in the car radio restoration nitch if you do it right. Like they say, "In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king!"

True that, and further, the guy with the big stash of old germanium transistors is king too. Let's not leave out technically adept women, I'm sure deep pocketed collectors would be even more easily charmed out of their loot... ka-ching!

[Enzo]

"I'll make it worth your while..."

No, you won't.

Ever notice how a lot of people think being persuasive means talking to you like you were a ten year old? Big smile and "Billy, if you do your homework we'll get some ice creeeeeam, and you can have a nice big boooooowl of it." A guy called me wanting me to come to his home on a service call for his juke box. I tell him I don;t do service calls anymore. (not that it is any of his business, but I can;t tote the 50 pound tool box, and those home jukes are ALWAYS down in the basement.) "I'll make it worth your whiiiiiile, I'll pay you 50 dooooolllllllers." Sir when I did service calls, they started at $150.

had one customer call me repeatedly trying to talk me into a service call. I was working at the music store then, they were calling me there. They finally gave up, then a month later, his wife comes to my counter to tell me, "You wouldn;t come do a service call, and we had to call someone from Detroit, and they charged us extra." Implying I was somehow responsible for the repair of their machine because I was local.


So I don't think you can scare them off easily.

[J M Fahey]

She was angry because the Detroit guy was not impressed with the $50 bill

Neither with the bonus vanilla ice cream bowl

[The Dude]

Not repair related, but a similar type story:

Years ago I was in a band that played mostly hard rock (Alice, Kiss, etc.). I got a call from a guy who wanted us to play his wedding dance. I told him we were a hard rock band and didn't do weddings. He said he'd seen us play before and insisted we do the wedding. I explained to him that, although he might like the band, his parents, grandparents, and other older wedding guests would not appreciate it. I did everything I could to try to talk him out of it. He still insisted. So, I shot him an outrageous price for the gig thinking that would deter him. It didn't work. He accepted. Damn!

So, we showed up and setup our usual show in a Holiday Inn banquet room. They had some pre-selected music for the first dance, the bride/father dance, etc. Then we fired up. We played 2 songs and the groom comes up and asks if we can stop and just play CD's for a while. I tell him sure- no problem (trying to be as accommodating as I can). He comes up again, a bit later and says some of the older folks are gone, can we start playing again? We start up and chase out the rest of the older crowd. He asks us to stop again and says, "If I have you guys just pack up now and quit, how much would I owe you?". I explain to him 1) that we've set up and will have to tear down regardless of how long we play, and that's what we get paid for. The music part is fun. 2) I could have booked another gig and gotten the full price, so why should I accept less? 3) I tried as hard as I could to tell him he didn't want us for his wedding and he didn't listen. Is that my fault?

He paid us in full. We were packed up and having drinks at a nearby bar by midnight.

[Leo_Gnardo]

Years ago I was in a band that played mostly hard rock (Alice, Kiss, etc.). I got a call from a guy who wanted us to play his wedding dance. I told him we were a hard rock band and didn't do weddings. - - - - -

Similar story with a different ending. A southern/hard rock type band I used to mix for was called to do a wedding reception. Blue haired grannies at the front tables, all the setup for a sonic disaster. But the band was very clever - they turned the tables on the audience by making a game of playing very very quietly. I remember the guitarists just about crying with laughter as they traded solos, one outdoing the last by playing even more whisper-quiet. The crowd dug it, no complaints, a memorably good time.

[Enzo]

Back in the 60s we played a club - huge dance bar - but they kept complaining about the volume. This was in the day when a PA system had 100 watts, 120 if you were fortunate enough to have a Vocal Master. But still too loud. Our guitarist considered himself Jimi Hendrix anyway and was offended. After a couple complaints, we sat the bass player on the front edge of the stage with my acoustic J50, the drummer got out a conga drum, and the guitarist just sang. They sat there on the lip of the stage, legs swinging in midair, and sang a nice ballad. It was not loud at all.