questions about nos caps, resistors

[alchemy]

I recently had the oppertunity to acquire the entire workshop of a deceased 92 year old electronics repairman. Among all of the other goodies are hundreds of NOS still in the packages sprague orange drops and carbon comp resistors, and a few sprague and mallory electrolytics. I have read before that with electrolytics there is some kind of reforming process that is necessary with NOS versions. What is this process and is it really necessary? And what about the orange drops and the resistors? Anything specific i need to test besides just the values drifting, and is there a reforming process with the orange drops as well? Thanks for any help. Cheers!

[tubeswell]

The whole lot will most likely be downright useless, and some of them will be highly dangerous. PM me for my addy. I'll take 'em off your hands safely.

In all seriousness. Everything should be fine but the older electrolytics. Google reforming caps if you want to mess around with them, but it isn't worth it IMHO. Better to use new electrolytic caps

[bob p]

I can't say that I'm too excited about deploying "vintage" electrolytic caps either. Having said that though, I have re-formed a number of old electrolytic caps with excellent results. If you've got a reasonable number of NOS 'lytic caps, it would be worth your time to build a reforming rig to recover as many of them as you can.

[alchemy]

cool, thanks for the replies. that's what i figured, everything but the electrolytics should be fine. i was going through some more stuff today (long, ongoing process, i filled up my whole pickup when i got the stuff) and found a couple hundred sprague ceramic disks too. i'm guessing these are fine as well since it's not too often i find them bad in 40 year old amps. I was wondering about the resistors though, as i have read that they can pick up moisture. they have all drifted a bit, but most are still within the specs. if they have picked up moisture, they will "crackle", right?

[Enzo]

I'd be measuring those resistors before using them.

[Chuck H]

+1 on measuring the resistor values. I have also heard they can become moist (er, ah...) and crackle but it seems unlikely to me and I've never experienced it. I would think the fix could be as simple as putting them in the oven at 200*F for an hour or so.

You said "hundreds" of orange drop and CC resistors. That won't load any truck I know of. What other cool stuff did you get? Oscope/s, bench meters, power supplies and most importantly... TUBES?

I've been lucky to take what seemed like cumbersome junk off peoples hands a couple of times. But never a 92YO electronics repairmans whole shop!!! Tell us about the goodies.

Chuck

[alchemy]

Yeah, i'd measured the values of a few handfuls of resistors randomly and while they have definately drifted, they for the most part seem to be within spec. I'll just have to check em as i use em. And yes, obviously the caps and resistors didn't fill the truck up. The rest was multiple scopes, signal generators, power supplies, emission tube tester, signal tracer, old tube radios and tv's (parts parts parts),the equipment list goes on and on (every single one with manuals), so much other random stuff like two knight 12 watt 2xel84 push pull amps, etc etc and most importantly about 400 tubes, many many of which are unused, and still more importantly a box of about 60 or 70 that are things like mullard amperex rca ge blah blah blah 12ax7's,12at7's, el84's,it goes on and on,even a pair of black plate 6l6's. I feel extremely fortunate that i found these tubes as i could never justify spending hundreds of dollars on a single tube, but now i have some wonderful rare tubes to play with in both amps i have but more importantly amps i'm building. without this, i would have never been able to answer the question "but what does it sound like with "real" tubes in it?" I hope i do not seem like i am gloating. I am very excited, but i'm only listing all this stuff because it was asked.. this really was a once in a lifetime haul, and especially because my current goal is to completely understand this technology inside and out. now i just have to figure out how to use a scope and signal generator to troubleshoot amps (any suggestions of books etc are most appreciated.). it's been about a week and a half, and i still get giddy every time i think about how lucky i just got. wow!
one last thing, "oven at 200 degrees"? I was thinking the same thing, but was unsure. Will this work?

Hey Enzo, would you PM me? I had a question regarding another thread. Thanks...

[Enzo]

OK, but is it a secret question?

[Enzo]

OK, I turned my PM on, I can;t send them when the receive them is off. I'll leave it on for a day.

[alchemy]

I've been reading about reforming the electrolytics. A rig can easily be built with a DC power supply, but I also read about using an old Heathkit capacitor tester (which I also now have). Any reason why building a separate rig would be better than just using what I already have?