NOD! A mini-novel!

[timbo_93631]

Chapter 1:
Sooooooooooo.  I bought a Hammond M103 for $80 a few years back that has a perfect cabinet, and the power amp and reverb amp are great too, but the tone generator sat without being spun or oiled for about 10 years and it was super stuck when I got it.  After much naptha and 4 oz of Hammond oil over the past two years or so it'll spin, but there is a spun bearing in the tone generator and it gets squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaky whenever it wants.  It also gums back up really easily.  It has sat under a drop cloth for almost a year now unloved because of the TG.  I have been too sad to look at it, because, again the cabinet is perfect.

Chapter 2:
I picked up a free Hammond T-233, which is the transistor amp version of the M-100's hoping to use it's tone generator in the M103, but no dice on that one, gummed up even worse.  At least it was free, and I kept the TG for spare parts in case I were to bite the bullet and pull the M-103's TG for a rebuild.

Chapter 3:
Back in March I saw an ad in the local CL for a "Hammond Organ" no pics, no details.  I called, it was a M-102 that belonged to the seller's grandfather and he said he'd sell it to me for $25.  We got busy and so did he, never found a time to connect, and soon the ad was gone so I figured the organ was too.  But then.  Awesome sauce!  The ad was back up this Monday and I arranged to go pick it up yesterday.  This morning I spun the generator and it sounded good spinning down so I let it sit, the generator seemed super oily which is a good thing.  This afternoon it fired right up and I just kicked out the jams for the past 30 min.  I am so super stoked.

Organ nerd rant, over.

[timbo_93631]

    Stoked!

[Leevibe]

That is awesome!!!

[flanagan0718]

Nice dude!


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[timbo_93631]

Thanks guys!  I'll try and get pics of the two together later today.  I discovered a neat bonus, the reverb amp in the M102 uses two 12AX7's, a pair of EL84's and a 5Y3 rectifier.  In my M103 the arrangement is a 12AX7 recovery tube feeding ECL86's which are like EL84's with half a 12AX7 at the top, and it uses these two single triodes to make the phase inverter.  Functionally the circuits are very similar, but one of them can be modded into a Marshall 18 watt clone really easy!  I'm pretty tempted to make a swap.  Other nice things are an Amperex 12AX7, a pair of Mullard EL84's, and some long plate (I think RCA) 12AX7's were in the organ.  Pulled those and put in some modern tubes, adding to the small stockpile of vintage tubes I have here.  I love Hammonds.

[midwayfair]

Are you restoring this one? I hope it's not a salvage job if it's functional!

[timbo_93631]

Yeah Jon,  I don't gut Hammonds with tubes and a tone generator as a rule, and I hardly come across them at an affordable price if at all.  The T-223 I gutted for the tone generator had a totally destroyed cab, and the transistor based electronics had a combination of spent electrolytics, awesome transistors, great mojo caps, and a built in single channel Leslie with a wooden drum, so it was a different story. 

This M102 is a peach, I'm going to do a cap job on the amps and some mechanical maintenance then give it a permanent home in our music room.

[selfdestroyer]

Tim, I have no hope getting organs living in the same city as you.. lol

Sounds like an awesome project.

Cody

[Leevibe]

This M102 is a peach, I'm going to do a cap job on the amps and some mechanical maintenance then give it a permanent home in our music room.

Thanks for opening Pandora's box Timbo. Your post sparked me to do a little research on Hammond tonewheel organs and I feel myself wanting one. Are you going to do any mods? I think if I got one of the spinets I'd want to wire it to have foldback in the upper octaves. It looks like a pretty easy mod.

[timbo_93631]

Yeah, looking at foldback on the upper register, a single channel leslie built in, changing the reverb amp speaker to a 12" and the main drivers to a single 15"  I am going to make a few changes to have the phase inverter on the reverb amp hit the power tubes a little harder for just a little more growl there.  Mechanically the M102 is in such good shape that the M103 is probably going to become a spare parts source as it's tone generator is just toast.

[Leevibe]

Looking forward to clips and status reports