3573 replies to this topic

[BoomerDog]

Funny you should say that.....I just IM'd him to check. Great minds.....

[Champion 507]

This is highly unusual isn't it? Hope you're okay John!

[chaparrAL]

Hope he is having a nice vacation with the Mrs. I hope.

[havlicek]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the concern, I'm just taking some time to recharge my batteries and get inspired again. Sometimes I start to feel like I'm talking to myself with the rewinding stuff , so I do other things (other than work) because you know what they say about idle hands I just finished making a cabinet for my son's Fender amp. I used to do these for guys back in the 80's and got motivated to do both my son's amps. This one is in cherry, dovetailed and with 6 coats of oil. It started out as a "Blues Jr." and came out nice:


Well...it's just another kind of "scratchbuilding"

-john

[stoo23]

Oh My !!

Not only are you embarrasing us with your inordinate arm winding skills!,..you have to go and Throw Superb cabinetry skills at us as well !!!,...ROFL

C'mon,..there Must be something that you do Real Badly !!!,..lol

Beautiful Work John,..having carried a Damn lot of those around in My life,..that's THE Best Looking Fender amp I've ever seen !!!

Seeeet !!

[Tex]

Schweet!

[Jairus]

They are beautiful John! Very talented in many ways...

[Horsepower]

That goes double for me! I've spent a FORTUNE on guys making wood cases for my Marantz stuff.

[Duffy]

Sometimes I start to feel like I'm talking to myself with the rewinding stuff

Ohh, I dunno; I've been working my way through the 90-&-counting pages here, and you've got so many good strokes I begin to think the "Blushing Smiley" was invented just for you!

I'm doing my homework, getting ready to do some winding of my own (last time I did it was '65) and I frankly need a lot of homework. Now, "Talking to yourself"--it's been said that a craftsman gets into the rhythm of his work and does it naturally, and when called upon to explain it he may omit essentials he takes for granted. There are hints and kinks buried in this thread, that wouldn't have occurred should be included in any deliberate tutorial; and they're worth digging for, despite the eyestrain.

Thanks for the very comprehensive photo sequence you put up here; it begs inclusion in your article on Steve O'Keefe's site, which kinda left a gap between "Here's the bare arm" and "Here's the arm all wound!" Between these and the Simco pamphlet, I'm starting to feel semi-confident.

Hey, speaking of cabinetry, anybody remember the Mitchell Sand Amp?

Duffy

[havlicek]

Thanks guys. In the trade, I'm NOT a cabinet maker...those guys, the real ones, not the ones who call themselves cabinet makers...are like brain surgeons. I do build the occasional kitchen or entertainment center, lots of built-ins etc., but only site built as I have no shop. I am a trim and general carpentry guy, but do enjoy makiing things in general...everything from surfboards to cabinets and of course motors for my slot racing friends

Duffy,

The motor thing will happen pretty easily if you just do a bunch and that's why having arms you can recycle and not worry about burning up is the best thing. Since good thin-lam blanks like the Muras and Champions and other vintage stuff is getting harder to come by, I'm hoping that Bill Bugenis will come through with the arms he was considering. I'd love to get a dozen of those to start with and his excellent coms to put aside for special projects. I just hope they don't have the groove on the face of the poles so they look "right" in older motors.

I'm still more than a little embarrassed that Steve O'Keefe put some of my arms on his site and figure it's more because old-style arm-winding today is a curiosity practiced by a few curmudgeons like me. Thanks for reminding me though, I have to go see what Steve has been up to on his great site.

-john

[Michael Rigsby]

Wow, very nice job on the cabinet for the Blues, Jr. amp, John. Really quality work there. Back in the day, I used to pay a cabinet maker big bucks to do my Marshall stacks in Cherry wood ...ala... Duane Allman of the Allman Brothers band. I used to go watch Duane play, took a few lessons from him, and loved the tone he got with his Marshalls. Luckily I had a very understanding father who indulged his son's slot car and music endeavors.

Your motors and definitely your cabinet work is most excellent sir.

Michael Rigsby

[havlicek]

Wow, very nice job on the cabinet for the Blues, Jr. amp, John. Really quality work there. Back in the day, I used to pay a cabinet maker big bucks to do my Marshall stacks in Cherry wood ...ala... Duane Allman of the Allman Brothers band. I used to go watch Duane play, took a few lessons from him, and loved the tone he got with his Marshalls. Luckily I had a very understanding father who indulged his son's slot car and music endeavors.

Your motors and definitely your cabinet work is most excellent sir.

Michael Rigsby

Thanks a heap Michael

Back in the day, I used to pay a cabinet maker big bucks to do my Marshall stacks in Cherry wood ...ala... Duane Allman of the Allman Brothers band.

Yikes Michael, there's a helluva lot more wood and work in a Marshall stack than a Blues Jr.! Lemme see...12 x 48, carry the ought, drop the 1 (I'm cipherin')...yup, that's an expensive job. Extremely cool that you got to take some lessons from Duane too. I saw the band just before the first record at a dinky theatre and sat three rows back not knowing who they were. Let's just say that my jaw needed to be bandaged from hitting the floor

-john

[Tex]

Yeah, a legend lost before his time. I read that when Eric Clapton came to the States, he would go to see Duane play.

Sorry for the drift.

[havlicek]

I'm trying my hand at 5 pole arms/motors for the first time for a blogger, in this case Kemtron. These things are...er...interesting.

1)Testing some working arms for resistance, I get completely different readings going from pole to pole...regardless of whether I skip a pole (as they are wound) or go sequentially. Freaky!
2)It's going to be difficult to get enough wire on there (in this case I'm using #30 awg) without resorting to cramming it on there with a popsickle stick...guranteed shorts
3)While messing around with patterns, it seems as though it may be necessary to wind the arm leaving the wire loose and attaching the com and com washer afterwards. With 5 sets of connections hanging loose, that's going to be a mess.

I'm not sure where this is going...or even "if" this is going.

-john

[don.siegel]

You're a brave man John!

I think Larry Shephard has done this, altho maybe a few years ago... I've never tried it myself, but I seem to remember that you wind two poles at a time! Do you have the general instructions for a 5-pole wind, or are you winging it?

Be careful - if it works, you may get other requests!

Don

[Prof. Fate]

Hi

You wind by every other pole. And 30 is a lot bigger than the motors of the day!.

I never thought to leave the ends the way you plan.

Fate

[havlicek]

You're a brave man John!

I think Larry Shephard has done this, altho maybe a few years ago... I've never tried it myself, but I seem to remember that you wind two poles at a time! Do you have the general instructions for a 5-pole wind, or are you winging it?

Be careful - if it works, you may get other requests!

Don

Hi Don,

Well...not THAT brave :-) The Blogger who asked me to have a whack at this didn't send me anything irreplaceable, as he has both extras as well as burned-up arms. Yes, the arms are wound two poles at a time, and there's really nothing "special" here requiring instructions, but I do have to figure out the mechanics of getting the wire on there and being neat about it. Also, because the winds of each successive pair of poles overlaps the pole behind it and then overlaps the one before and after on the last coil, this will be strictly a choice between trying to get either the number of turns or the absolute length of wire the same...but not both...I don't think. I have done some testing both to get a length (and therefore a number of turns extrapolating from that length) and a resistance that I think the arms can "live" with, but I'm doing these by holding them in a pin vise which is awkward. If I'm going to have a chance of being successfull here, the coils will have to be as neat as I can make them. As far as getting other requests to rewind these things...I sure won't be looking for them I may also look into getting a clamp fixture for my crank machined for this size arm (a little larger than a 36D), that will make it a lot easier.

Posted Today, 01:17 PM

Hi

You wind by every other pole. And 30 is a lot bigger than the motors of the day!.

I never thought to leave the ends the way you plan

Hi Rocky,

Yes, I have had some of the motors here and taken them apart over the years to clean them up, as well, I have some "extra" arms here for reference. On the #30, it is a bit larger than stock (which I think was #32 awg), but if I can do this at all, #30 should be fine. I'm not certain I will tie up all the ends and install the com afterwards, but it seems like it might be necessary. There's a large fiber washer beneath the com that looks as though it's there to prevent damaging the coils when soldering since the com is all but completely covering the top of the coils. It may be possible to not even use the washer which would make tieing up the top end easier, that will be one of the experiments I have yet to try.

-john

[Prof. Fate]

Hi

In the day, I did the winding by length (6' of 32 is one ohm) and tried to get the turns right.

Fate

[Champion 507]

I remember rewinding a 5 pole HO Athearn train motor back in the mid-60's. It ran but I've never touched one to rewind since.

[havlicek]

I got the thing wound, but haven't installed the com and soldered-off the connections. So far no shorts, but that will very likely change as I complete the arm. It's also going to be interesting to pair up the wires correctly since it's actually difficult to see exactly where they're coming from on the first two poles I may have to meter them to pair them up correctly so I can solder them and cause shorts so that I can take it apart to try again

-john

[havlicek]

Looking to install the com on this thing and checking timing on the three examples I have here...they're all over the place! On two, the com tabs are lined up more or less with the center of the stack poles...if that isn't weird enough, on the third, the tabs are between the poles as they would be on a three pole arm!? If anyone has a known good Kemtron, I'd appreciate it if you'd check the position of the com tabs. TIA

-john

[don.siegel]

On the ones I just looked at, the tabs are pretty much lined up with the center of the stacks, as on two of yours John.

Don

PS: just double-checked that on a MIB Kemtron X503!

[havlicek]

Hi Don and thanks for the super-speedy reply! This place is amazing...where else can you get such esoteric info in the veritable blkiink of an eye?! I'm going in, if I'm not back in say...an hour...and you hear cursing coming from the general direction of East Hampton, you can guess how things went Thanks again.

-john

[Alchemist]

Hi John,

Any pix please please?

Thank you.

Ernie

[havlicek]

Hi Ernie,

It's in the oven baking right now and I'll take some later. The first com lost a plate (did you hear the cursing???), so i carefully took that one off, removed another from a second arm here that was missing the phenolic from the end ...installed that one and epoxied some fiber washers on the end. What a freakin' nightmare these things are. Anyway, the arm seems to be OK according to the meter...it has the same bizarre type readings as the other working arm I have here

-john