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1 case so far in the county i live in in Pennsylvania. It's spreading no doubt here. This updates a few times a day, Russia, 4 cases, don't think so. China numbers are not going up so that means they stopped reporting.
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

That's where we differ. I see that as lazy and just waiting to break.  I stopped doing things i see as half assed, whether it's working on cars, my house, money etc. I'm going to retire in 5 years so my train of thought is way different than it was years ago.    If i ever have to rework something or mod it, the loop is trivial with proper desoldering equipment whether it's a sucker, desoldering braid or a Pace desoldering station (which is on my buy list right now). Working on military equipment for a living you get ingrained with failproof connections. You see extra wires in harnesses that aren't connected to anything but are there for possible future upgrades, you see multiple ground wires. You see teflon wire, which is what i mostly use now for everything sonce i came across 2 full boxes at a auction. You have inspectors checking your work, nicked wire from stripping, failure. Too much or too little solder, fail.

I make pedals for a few local guys, that's about it, hopefully they last a long time.

Going to mod stuff or tweak, i have gone to a breadboard. I have seen many older stock pedals (with grand reputations) that were put together by ladies on a assembly line, thrown together but still working, not sloppy but built for ease of assembly. No 90 degree bends that look so nice, no need for that, i'd rather see a 105c cap or 5%.

I like nice heavy pcb traces, not the crap like Fender (no offense) sells today. Built many Heathkits with my paper route money and that was the greatest practice, seeing your skills improve and your product working first time.

As to the electrically sound, no problem, but i see it as it could have been done better for trivial amount of time. If it's a pot, jack, battery connector, ribbon cable, if it can move, it will, and it will fail at some time.

Learned on my dad's Ungar with the cork handle in about 74'. Still have it here somewhere. Probably have 10 irons, 4 guns, only use 2 or 3 though. 4 different sizes of solder. I love my Wellers, digital temp controlled or the WTCPT with the different temp tips. Am certified IPC J-STD-001 and a few others but we need that for work.

As for technique, i was taught, get in get out. Also need the physical connection before the soldered connection. I've seen some boutique pedals that just pushed a wire through a pot lug and soldered it. Garbage build in my book, you need to loop it through and also cut off any excess. I've also seen them that looked like my dog soldered it, terrible.

Good soldering equip is like having a Fluke meter, Tektronix scope, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ql0jGN-F-g&feature=youtu.be

You have to look at this too, there are antique radio forums where the guys still find, restore, collect radios that are 100 years old now. There's new people joining yet a lot of the guys are in their 70's, a bit older than me being 57. So maybe we are good until 2065.

I don't know where you're at with the flea markets, but they are the most productive for old stuff for me here in PA. I just got some old medical equipment, some handmade engineering test stuff, some other odds and ends, some full of tubes,  some germanium, others was loaded with 100 LF356 and TL074's.

Back close to 20 years ago i was collecting wooden tube radios, now they are getting scarcer and of course the price is gone up. I think many flea market sellers don't care to investigate deeply what they are selling as electronics and that stuff is way over their heads. They want to bring home a few extra dollars and a cabinet full of resistors or caps is worth selling for $10 so they don't have to lug it there next weekend. Sometimes it's overpriced.

I myself have been tempted to have pcb's made in China for old designs. Of all the ones i have bought, i think very few have had any insight into the customer wanting to use a actual full sized old carbon comp resistor, or a full sized axial capacitor. I have seen a few that would allow different transistor pinouts which is nice. I used to do Autocad designs for audio amps with layouts and schematics and would actually like to start doing it again. You can make pads for tiny resistors inside the size you need for a bigger resistors. Just my rant on that.

Wife worked there a few years back and brought boxes home for me. Doing inventory things sucks. Never mind testing these tubes. I have a Hickok 6000a and a few others now so i am set on testers. Here is the start of the rangemasters.

 I may get rid of some silicons lol.  Email me if you need something specific, maybe some germs ( trying to inventory) i have old caps and carbon comps too.  I would rather trade.

Like i said, i might have a dozen 2n1305's but only one 2n1304. I know i have bunches of germ diodes 1n200 series?

I end up buying more projects like i got this today for $40. Maybe this year or week or 5 years i will glue it back together.

 I may be getting old but sometimes i am looking for a part, such as a .05uf/400v i just bought. Couldn't find them, they were out in the garage where i left them.

Some of the tubes i got. I stopped counting after 5,000. Half where from my dad's tv shop, others i buy at local ham fests and yard sales. Many tubes people never heard of.  I got tired of the old 12ax7 into whatever. Too easy. I'm on a octal kick now, 6sj7, 6sl7, 6sq7, 6sc7 for preamps, odd ball such as 6gk6 and 6ar6 for outputs.



Few amps, i have my pictures scattered, phone, computer, tablet. Marshall 18 watt style, second is half princeton, half matchless, i think.

Never know what i am cooking up. Pedal wise, i have been reading on the rangemaster, one part of me says to make it original, other part says put a 6 way switch on the back with variable input capacitor, 2 bias pots, etc.etc. I bought 3 enclosures similar to a aluminum bud project box, so it might, from 50 ft, look like one sitting on top of the amp. I was thinking a Iommi/Rory switch. I can play children of the grave but no Rory songs. I'm gonna make 3 of them, one for me, one for guy at work, and one for my buddy who brings me lots of repair work.

New here. Name is Bob, from the Pocono's in PA. Lots of info here so i joined, good reason. Building tube amps from scratch, from film projector amps, PA, heads, etc, guitars, pedals, tube repairs, mods, you know how it goes. It varies, a few scratch made amps this summer and a Esquire, now it's pedal time. Rangemaster type, so been sorting through transistors last few days. Sorted tubes all summer, (6000), now semi inventoried.

Here come the stories. Ok, it started way back when, late 60's as a kid helping my dad. He had a tv shop so tubes, books, test equipment was always around. Building Heathkits. He used to frequent a army surplus place in Wilkes-Barre PA. and always bring home stuff. Circuit cards, tubes, military radios, odd things like a few thousand 33 ohm resistors, etc.etc. I was building fuzz pedals from Rca books before i got my drivers license back in 78.

Ok, stuff collected dust for 20-30 years, now last few i have finished the house projects and getting back in old hobbies. Been doing lots of tube repairs and mods for friends and customers, winding hundred or so pickups, other musical related things.

Few pictures below, note the messy workbench in basement, also have amps piled high in garage and extra bedroom, also wood working equipment as i want to start building my own cabinets, i buy tweed or unfinished cabinets from Mergili or TRM. Member over on the Agile guitar forum and visit it daily, nice bunch of fellows.



B&K transistor analyzer. Been using this but hard to read the small meter for exact gains and leakages. Some times matches the gain reading on my 2 Micronta bench meters, sometimes doesn't match. I have a DCA55 on order to see how that works. I don't like the RG geofx setup, too lazy to build it? If it's the standard everyone uses, i will build one.


Next up, some of the hundreds of trannys, some NOS or boxed, all mostly pulls from 1960-1970? Me or my dad or my sisters actually unsoldered these from military boards or got them at ham fests or wherever. I had bunches of new i sold to Rich at Monsterpiece fuzz some years back. Great guy, great pedals.



Trying to sort them out but now waiting on the DCA55 from Newark ($48), great price, i hope it's not obsolete or something.



Some of the capacitor and resistor hoard,new and old, 3 or 4 HP distortion analyzers (may be selling a few as i have another i use), some guitars.



Some of the real old transistors, hand etched rca's, lots of mil numbers to cross, i have boxes of radio-tv books and manf. data books, have been boxed since we moved here 12 years ago, have to dig them out as some of these tranny numbers don't cross on the web.



That's all for now, hope i didn't go past the newbie word count limit or something. Will post some old amp pictures when i get some time, pre-war Supro, few premiers, 59' champ i picked up this summer.