Working On More Than One Project

[Nowhere-Man]

Is it normal to work on a few radios or tape players at the same time. I now have in total about 5 unfinished projects. At least a couple are on hold as I figured I didn't quite yet have the experience to do a fast repair so I decided to wait a while. In fact, I have one Saalburg that does work on VHF but it will be necessary to get the LW and MW going.

I have a car cassette player that is almost a finished repair and intend to return to it later in the next few weeks.

At the moment, however, I'm working on 2 radios at the same time and my mood will dictate which one I tackle on a given day.

Not sure if this is typical and if other people do this?

For some reason, it seems to make repair work less monotonous if you multi-task but maybe also it's a bad habit as you have radios scattered all over the place.

[Ed_Dinning]

Hi, I think most of us will multi-task in this hobby; it is a continuation of what you did in work before retirement in my case.

Some serious design work will need focus and concentration and may be done in one session, but if the son is shining and SWMBO is needing assistance in the garden then out you go.

I presently have several radio projects on the go, I've just completed a purpose built hut for the garden mowers and tools, there is an ongoing project for solar thermal power and I'm also indexing a part of my tech library. I will shortly be renewing brake pipes and sorting paintwork on my wife's 15 year old Focus.
We also take several holidays a year, including a long one to visit our son in Melbourne.

I wish I was back at work so I had more free time!!!

[Yorkie]

It's normal for me, so you're among friends in the neck of the woods!

I'm not very focussed and am easily distracted, so instead of single-mindedly seeing one thing through from start to finish, some other project that takes my fancy pops up and I'm off on a frolic, so as a consequence, it often takes an age to bring things to fruition. The main thing I need to be getting on with is the restoration of a  1935 Ekco AC77 which I totally stripped down well over a year ago. The field coil was open circuit (no surprises there) so I set about building a coil winder, then having successfully re-wound the field coil, I spent a little time writing it up as an article for the BVWS Bulletin. Next aspect of the AC77 was that I had some B5 and B7 valves which needed testing so I needed some valve-base adaptors  as my Taylor 45D Valve tester didn't have those bases fitted, so designed and I made four adaptors for B4, B5, B7 and M.O. valves, then I wrote that up for the Bulletin too.

I saw an article on a website for a Sine Wave Generator which I thought would make a nice winter project, so I built that, then I saw a little 'Suggested Circuit' from Radio Constructor magazine from the 1960s for a 'Coil Coverage Test Unit' which captured my imagination - another little 'winter project'  and which I've posted details of on the forum, so those projects were yet more self-inflicted diversions from the AC77!

Recently my younger son (not so young - 47) asked if I'd refurbish a Bush AC41 that he had which had stopped working. Found the fault quickly - just a wire-wound resistor that was O/C, but it needed all the waxies changing, and three electrolytics a few resistors - all done now. It's my habit to always make a cradle when restoring radios - just a bracket  fashioned from flat steel strip at each corner of the chassis to hold the chassis upside down to work on it safely, but that adds to the restoration time.  Having restored the radio, my son asked if I could make up a lead to connect his I-pod to play through the gram socket. I thought 'sure - a simple task' but then as I've alluded to in another thread, it isn't that simple - the signal level from an I-pod isn't sufficient to play through the gram socket, so I ended up making a little pre-amp. That's finished now and will be going to my son's on Friday.

I don't like just 'mending' or 'doing up' radios - to my mind if it's worth taking the back of a set, it's worth restoring it. If it's not worth restoring, I don't take the back off. 'Restoring' - not 'doing up', is my hobby.

I'm off down to the NVCF in early May, with a short detour to collect a little Polish 'Figaro Special'. I know it needs a knob and a back and I'm unlikely to find either, so in anticipation that I may be able to use one knob as a pattern for the missing one, I've bought some moulding alginate to make a knob. Really, that ought to wait till I've finished the AC77, but whether it does, or whether I'm side-tracked depends on how whimsical I'll be when I get the Figaro.

I've always enjoyed 'home-brewing' - especially simple test gear - but I've  never had the 'bodegertronics' mind-set  ("I'll just sling it together and if it works, I'll tidy it up"). Instead, I've always aimed at neat construction and boxing up - fancy boxes, fancy front panels etc, in the fond - if naïve - belief, that it will work. As a consequence, over the years, I've built many items which look nice on the shelf, but are non-functioning ornaments, largely because my constructional skills exceed my technical skills.

 Really, my tagline sums me up!

Probably undiagnosed OCD or some such thing.

[Nowhere-Man]

It's normal for me, so you're among friends in the neck of the woods!

I'm not very focussed and am easily distracted, so instead of single-mindedly seeing one thing through from start to finish, some other project that takes my fancy pops up and I'm off on a frolic, so as a consequence, it often takes an age to bring things to fruition. The main thing I need to be getting on with is the restoration of a  1935 Ekco AC77 which I totally stripped down well over a year ago. The field coil was open circuit (no surprises there) so I set about building a coil winder, then having successfully re-wound the field coil, I spent a little time writing it up as an article for the BVWS Bulletin. Next aspect of the AC77 was that I had some B5 and B7 valves which needed testing so I needed some valve-base adaptors  as my Taylor 45D Valve tester didn't have those bases fitted, so designed and I made four adaptors for B4, B5, B7 and M.O. valves, then I wrote that up for the Bulletin too.

I saw an article on a website for a Sine Wave Generator which I thought would make a nice winter project, so I built that, then I saw a little 'Suggested Circuit' from Radio Constructor magazine from the 1960s for a 'Coil Coverage Test Unit' which captured my imagination - another little 'winter project'  and which I've posted details of on the forum, so those projects were yet more self-inflicted diversions from the AC77!

Recently my younger son (not so young - 47) asked if I'd refurbish a Bush AC41 that he had which had stopped working. Found the fault quickly - just a wire-wound resistor that was O/C, but it needed all the waxies changing, and three electrolytics a few resistors - all done now. It's my habit to always make a cradle when restoring radios - just a bracket  fashioned from flat steel strip at each corner of the chassis to hold the chassis upside down to work on it safely, but that adds to the restoration time.  Having restored the radio, my son asked if I could make up a lead to connect his I-pod to play through the gram socket. I thought 'sure - a simple task' but then as I've alluded to in another thread, it isn't that simple - the signal level from an I-pod isn't sufficient to play through the gram socket, so I ended up making a little pre-amp. That's finished now and will be going to my son's on Friday.

I don't like just 'mending' or 'doing up' radios - to my mind if it's worth taking the back of a set, it's worth restoring it. If it's not worth restoring, I don't take the back off. 'Restoring' - not 'doing up', is my hobby.

I'm off down to the NVCF in early May, with a short detour to collect a little Polish 'Figaro Special'. I know it needs a knob and a back and I'm unlikely to find either, so in anticipation that I may be able to use one knob as a pattern for the missing one, I've bought some moulding alginate to make a knob. Really, that ought to wait till I've finished the AC77, but whether it does, or whether I'm side-tracked depends on how whimsical I'll be when I get the Figaro.

I've always enjoyed 'home-brewing' - especially simple test gear - but I've  never had the 'bodegertronics' mind-set  ("I'll just sling it together and if it works, I'll tidy it up"). Instead, I've always aimed at neat construction and boxing up - fancy boxes, fancy front panels etc, in the fond - if naïve - belief, that it will work. As a consequence, over the years, I've built many items which look nice on the shelf, but are non-functioning ornaments, largely because my constructional skills exceed my technical skills.

 Really, my tagline sums me up!

Probably undiagnosed OCD or some such thing.

Glad to hear it's not just me. I think in my case what happened was I was already very interested in basic marine electrical DIY but one day I saw a copy of Chas Miller's Valve Radio And Audio book so took it home. I was a bit naïve back then and seemed to think I could pick it all up from a book and theory till I eventually started the practical side which came as a bit of a shock.

I started work on a 1939 Halycon battery set and, in actual fact, it's ready to power up and test. All in all, it wasn't a bad job although now I realise I could do better and ask myself whether some work would be better off redone? For example, I was a bit wary of really taking it more fully apart so I could wire up fresh wire right from the lugs. Instead, I took the easier way of splicing wire together where access was limited (which is still a bit dodgy). So, rather than risk it, maybe I'll try and go back to that job with my soldering which is now a bit better than it was before.

As I said before, though, music is the way I unwind. I write my own material and record on analogue and I find that really relaxes me a lot as it's kind of fun.