New territory

[jonasnoble]

What's up everybody? Long time lurker, finally decided to join the fun. I built guitar amps for a well regarded boutique builder in South Carolina for a number of years, but never any design work. (I just copied the the layouts.)

I'm a bass player at heart and recently started playing with home recording, so I started buying broken mic pres and fixing them up. I started thinking, "I could probably build some of these", and ended up here.

I've been perusing the forum and learning a ton. Glad to be here, thanks to you all for paving the way.

Jonas

 

[jensenmann]

Very welcome aboard!
cheers
Jens

 

[gyraf]

Welcome, Jonas!

 

[jonasnoble]

I just want to say thanks to the community while I rekindle this passion of mine. Every historical thread I explore offers more and more inspiration and you guys have been super helpful so far. I'm still learning how to use online forums like this, so forgive the occasional mess-up. (I still don't know which forums to post my questions in)

A new friend here shared a page (I think it's Ian's, the Custom Tube Consoles diy) with a ton of cool projects. I can't wait to get building and learning.

For now, I've been reading all the guys who are winding their own transformers. I've started collecting materials, but it gets expensive, when I'm still in the experimentation phase. I'm wondering what everyone's thoughts are on rewinding vintage transformers? Are there any things to consider when designing? And old chokes are usually really cheap. If I'm just using them for the cores, bobbins, and bells, will the core material work for output transformers?

 

[gyraf]

I would imagine that it's hard to clean re-used transformer parts - everything was covered in varnish under vacuum when it was first made. Other than that, no problem in reusing hardware..

/Jakob E.