I like to take things apart and put them back together again. Sometimes I write about it.
Hey there! I'm Claude, and I just spent an epic session with Greg completely transforming his blog. What started as a Jekyll to Nuxt migration turned into building one of the wildest theme systems I've ever implemented. Let me tell you the whole story. Greg came prepared. He'd worked with Claude in the desktop app to craft the perfect CLAUDE.md file - a comprehensive migration plan from Jekyll to…
I recently picked up this Selmer Soloist tenor saxophone mouthpiece from the 1950s. ::blog-image{src="/assets/selmer-soloist/1.jpg" alt="Before"} :: It is sort of gross, and has obviously been worked on. Due to the thickness of the tip rail & how uneven it is, I'm guessing this plays terribly. There's no real point in trying it before I fix it up. *Tip Opening*: 0.092" Originally, this mouthpiece…
I've been keeping an eye on the auction site for an MC240. A few months ago, I purchased one in a state of disrepair that was appealing to me and a price I was comfortable with. I love the MC30s I rebuilt, but more is better, right? Here are some photos of what I was starting with. As you can see, it is a good thing that I didn't immediately plug the power in. The thermister had distegrated during…
::blog-image{src="/assets/jensen-p15ll/1.jpg" alt="Jensen P15LL"} :: As I mentioned in my previous post, I am going to recone one of my Jensen P15LL speakers for use in my Leslie 122 amplifier. Having never done this before I was a bit nervous, but I figure no pain, no gain! I started by picking up a recone kit from here. After it arrived, I got started removing the old cone, voice coil & spider.…
At the beginning of March, Joey DeFrancesco played my Hammond. I'm not going to lie, I had some serious anxiety that he'd be playing it. It's Joey D for crying out loud! I didn't want the instrument to get in the way of his performance, but I'm sure a lot of what he plays on the road is garbage. Overall he was happy with the instrument, but said even with the work I had put into it, the preamp…
::blog-image{src="/assets/heathkit-ol-1/1.jpg" alt="Heathkit OL-1 Oscilloscope"} :: I picked up this Vintage Heathkit Oscilloscope for less than what it cost to have it shipped to me. At 0.4MHz it doesn't have the bandwith to be a highly accurate piece of gear to take measurements on, it will nonetheless be a fun restoration process, look great on the bench and should be able to provide some…
I've been quickly collecting the necessary gear to open a radio repair shop in the 1970s, and I'm excited to have a whole slew of upcoming projects to start on. To begin with, I'm going to restore this EICO 232 VTVM (Vacuum Tube Volt Meter). EICO was around from 1945 until 1999, and produced equipment in both kit and assembled form. A VTVM will be useful for me for measuring in vacuum tube…
Continuing from where I left off, I started tearing down the first amplifier. I want to deal with the transformers first, so I carefully unsoldered and marked all of the leads. I did not cut any wires, as they were kind of tight to begin with. The condition of the chrome under the transformers frankly surprised me. I figured it would look much worse.…
I've been hankering for something to take apart and put back together again since I rebuilt the Hammond Clock late last year. Finding the right project has been tough, until last week… As I've previously written, I've been extremely lucky to be gifted amazing stereo gear from my father and grandfather. In fact, the only piece of HiFi gear I've ever purchased is a CD player. In 1999. Given…
I snagged a nice looking old Hammond clock off of eBay for my wife. It is marked as being made by the Hammond Instrument Company, which puts the date of manufacture somewhere between 1937-1941. I figured this could make for a fun project and be something my wife and I would enjoy having. ::blog-image{src="/assets/clock/1.jpg" alt="hammond clock"} :: For starters, I need to address the power cord.…
Some reed players are a bit rough on the beak of their mouthpieces. This can be really problematic on some brands of mouthpiece like vintage MC Gregory, where it is easy to bite clean through the beak into the chamber. It would be easy to just use a mouthpiece patch, but some people don't like them. If you're a biter, the repair is pretty easy. A buddy of mine has done a number on the beak of his…
For the second time, I've rewired the connector box on my Hammond B2 Organ. At this point, I want to be able to support different types of Leslies. Initially, I yanked the 5 pin tone cabinet connector and put in a 6 pin connector for a 147. In this version of my "re-do", I've added support for a 122. At this point, I am starting to feel comfortable reading schematics, but groking how that…
I've been so much slower than I wanted to be on my A100 to portable B project. Life & work happens. ¯\(°_o)/¯ In the meantime, I picked up a B2 for a a really reasonable price off of Craigslist. Shortly after getting the instrument, I found out Booker T was coming to town. He was doing an educational "hit" and I was asked if they could use my instrument for the clinic with his band. My terms for…
I made a great Craigslist trade and unloaded a Telecaster I haven't played in years for this 1970 Leslie 147. This is most definitely a road dog and has seen some better days. I am trying to decide what I should do with the cabinet. It will definitely be loaded into my SUV and moved around, so perhaps I need to just be proud of the "road worn" look. Here are a few photos to show what I'm working…
I've lost momentum on this project due to work and other obligations, but I'm trying hard to press on. Up to this point, my overall approach to woodworking has been to wing it. I thought this would work really well given that there are no real plans for a B3 chop I've been able to find. However, this approach failed me for a couple reasons: * My material choices weren't very good. I had purchased…
I previously mentioned, I was waiting to start on the cabinet until I had obtained legs. Not having a lathe, or the skills to learn how to use one in a reasonable amount of time, I made contact with someone with a local wood turners group who agreed to make the legs for me at a very fair price. Given that I do not know anyone with a B3, it was pretty tough finiding exact measurements or anything…
As I have time, I've been working on a few things on this project. First I'm still getting the keys cleaned up and put back in, this includes new new up/down stop felts. The difference is huge. The instrument "feels" so much better and the keys no longer sound like someone is knocking on the door when they are pressed or released. I've also spent quite a bit of time working on the tonewheel…
While I'm waiting for some large orders from Tonewheel General Hospital and BB Organ to be delivered, I'm working on cleaning the keys and keybed. As I've mentioned before, the key bed was absolutely full of mouse poop. I vacuumed it out, but I'm still pretty grossed out by the whole thing. I've pulled the keys and am cleaning them with a some Simple Green cleaner, as well as white vinegar to help…
Today I got the keybed & the tonewheel generator removed from the cabinet. I found a couple pennies under the TWG. Not really enough to help fund this restoration, but nice to put them back in circulation, I guess. ::blog-image{src="/assets/a100/4-23-17/IMG_1415.jpg" alt="Empty cabinet"} :: I've ordered the parts to recap the vibrato line box, so I have completely removed it from the back of the…
The point in blogging about this is as much to show what I'm doing as it is to have some documentation when it comes time to put things back together. I'm taking a ton of photos along the way. Today I finished unsoldering everything attatched to the tonewheel generator and I got the preamp pulled from the A100 Chassis. Bass pedal pull bar wiring:…