27-05-2011, 12:10 PM
Having two main hobbies - woodturning/woodworking and radio restoration, as well as being a one time active radio amateur, these are hobbies that are very greedy for space! I have a spare bedroom which is set up as my 'radio' shack' harking back to my days as an active radio amateur and which is still set up with a transceiver, with three outdoor antennas - an inverted V, a 'Cobwebb' and a vertical, to cover all amateurs bands from 160M to 10M. However, I lost interest in amateur radio when the hobby evolved into what I consider to be little more than posh CB, with few amateurs being interested in or knowledegable about the technical or homebrew aspect of the hobby. I found that my eyes started to glaze over when yet another on air contact reeled off a list of his 'state of the art' (soon to be obsolete) shop bought equipment, then gave me a weather report from Bristol or wherever. Basically, I've come to terms with the fact that the hobby as I once knew it, has disappeared. It's changed from one in which amateurs took pride in how little it cost them to get on air and put out a clean signal, to one in which they take pride in how much they've spent. I'm an old buffer now, and as I've passed through life, I've discovered that enjoyment derived from any activity has little corellation with the amount of money expended. It's offten a turism that 'the best things in life are free' (even if you keep your clothes on!). But I hang onto my amateur radio equipment because who knows, I might have a change of heart, but I doubt it - it's just too sedantary and I like to see something for the time I expend on whatever hobby I'm involved with. That's why may attention turned to restoration of vintage radios.
The spare bedroom/radio shack simply doesn't have enough room to restore radios in, but I use it to do small construction work on little projects of one sort or another, such as exposing and developing PCBs for projects, and to store components and test gear.
Though we do have a double garage, we have two cars and unlike many neighbours, who have garages full of junk and cars worth £30k parked on their drives overnight, we prefer to keep our cars in the garage. I have a large bandsaw in there, and an electric sawbench, and little space for much else.
Hence, about eight years ago I decided to construct a workshop. As wel already have a garden shed and greehouse, I didn't want to encroach too far onto the garden space, so decided to limit the size to 10ft x 8 foot, which I knew would really be a severe compromise. I built it myself, with a pitched roof, and felt tiles, which are starting to look their age. I hate winters and cold weather with a passion, and I knew that unless I made it warm and cosy, I'd never set foot in it from November to March. I made it from shiplap, on frames I made from 3 x 2 'CLS' timber from B&Q, and lined the walls with 6mm MDF, with 50mm of fibreglass and tarred paper in the walls. (CLS means Canadian Lumber stock, even though it comes from Scotland! It's planed all round, with the corners smoothed and even now is still very cheap in 8Ft lengths).
I installed light and power, with 8 pairs of 13Amp sockets, two double flourescent striplights, and a balanced flue gas heater. I had double glazed panes made to size for the windows. (Only cost a little more than two panes of glass!). The floor is flooring grade 22mm chipboard on 6 x 2 joists suported in brick piers and the workshop is raised up off the ground by 3 courses of bricks, overlaid by damp proof course plastic. I made the door 2ft 9" wide to give good access, and designed the roof trusses to allow storage of lengths of timber. I installed an inturder alarm which cost me £2.00 at a car boot sale, and via a secuity alarm engineers' website, gained advice on how the clear the previous owner's security code and input my own. I also fitted an IR security light. In winter, I put the heater on before breakfast, and by the time I've scoffed my bowl of porridge, it's up to 20C, which suits my old bones.
I built two benches, one with drawers and cupboards. The framwork is from 4 x 2 CLS, the top from rough sawn 6 x 2, glued and biscuit jointed together 2ft wide, then planed smooth with a power plane. My woodturning lathe sits on the bench where the wndows are and I can work on radios on the other bench. However, I usually work on a 'table' that I've made, which fits onto the lathe bed so I have natural light from the windows.
I've attched an external view of the workshop, a pic of the inside, and of the 'table' sitting on the lathe bed for me to work on radios. When I want to do wooturning, the table just lifts off. I've set out a few of the items that I tend t use most in restorations, someo f which are:
Soldering irons: One a 30Watt with a sloping bit - the other, for largr tags, a 40Watt chisel bit.
Wire strippers - a neat little jobby which strips wire at one end, and snips that cut it at the other end.
Brake cleaning fluid that I use copious amounts of for cleaning chassis, getting rid of wax, and so on, with a piant brush. It evaporates quickly, and leaves no residue. I'm not a fan of WD40 which leaves a residue (which is what it's designed to do).
Servisol - for switches and pots. It's served the trade well for decade as it has me. I'm too tight fisted to fork out for gimmicky things like De-oxit'!
A 1500V 0.1 cap with a croc clip at one end, for doing tests on AC/DC receivers.
Test leads which have the option of croc clips or prods, so for example I can clip toe 0V lead to the cahassis and use a prod in the live lead, or a croc clip if I prefer.
A homebrew signal injector/tester, which I've found over the years can locate a faulty stage (or a working one!) within minutes, so that the fault area can be narrowed down, rather than crawling all over the set making subjective assumptions about this or that which might or might not be at fault.
A homebrww ESR meter.
An illuminated magnifier and an LED light.
A lamp limiter.
Pointy pliers for bending and tugging at wires. (I also use Spencer Wells forceps for that).
A capacitance meter.
Insulated pliers.
There are lots of other things I could have included, but they're obvious -screwdrivers, nut spinners, solder sucker, isolating transformer, multimeter.
Much diagnosis can (and should) be carried with a set switched off and unplugged from the mains. Apart from being safer, it's kinder to the set, which - if it's faulty, can harm certain components such as OPTs. Continuity and resistance tests of coils, IFTs, speakers, output and mains transformers and droppers, valve heater chains, bulbs, and continuity of 'switchery' can all be tested without the set plugged in. Also the value of resistors to see if they're within spec. The only reason to switch on a set which is undergoing restoration, (apart from checking if it works!) is to check the voltages at various points after - not before, the above tests are carried out. That said, in a working set in which we're repalcing say waxies, it's a good idea to 'do a bit - test a bit', then that way, if the set stops working, it isn't eight waxies and five resistors we need to be wondering about - just the last bit we did!
I'm not saying that this is the only approach, but it's the one that works for me, which I've come to adopt after much needless hassle and disappointment over many years.
I hope it's of help and interest to others, and the pics of my 'Wendy house' workshop!
David
The spare bedroom/radio shack simply doesn't have enough room to restore radios in, but I use it to do small construction work on little projects of one sort or another, such as exposing and developing PCBs for projects, and to store components and test gear.
Though we do have a double garage, we have two cars and unlike many neighbours, who have garages full of junk and cars worth £30k parked on their drives overnight, we prefer to keep our cars in the garage. I have a large bandsaw in there, and an electric sawbench, and little space for much else.
Hence, about eight years ago I decided to construct a workshop. As wel already have a garden shed and greehouse, I didn't want to encroach too far onto the garden space, so decided to limit the size to 10ft x 8 foot, which I knew would really be a severe compromise. I built it myself, with a pitched roof, and felt tiles, which are starting to look their age. I hate winters and cold weather with a passion, and I knew that unless I made it warm and cosy, I'd never set foot in it from November to March. I made it from shiplap, on frames I made from 3 x 2 'CLS' timber from B&Q, and lined the walls with 6mm MDF, with 50mm of fibreglass and tarred paper in the walls. (CLS means Canadian Lumber stock, even though it comes from Scotland! It's planed all round, with the corners smoothed and even now is still very cheap in 8Ft lengths).
I installed light and power, with 8 pairs of 13Amp sockets, two double flourescent striplights, and a balanced flue gas heater. I had double glazed panes made to size for the windows. (Only cost a little more than two panes of glass!). The floor is flooring grade 22mm chipboard on 6 x 2 joists suported in brick piers and the workshop is raised up off the ground by 3 courses of bricks, overlaid by damp proof course plastic. I made the door 2ft 9" wide to give good access, and designed the roof trusses to allow storage of lengths of timber. I installed an inturder alarm which cost me £2.00 at a car boot sale, and via a secuity alarm engineers' website, gained advice on how the clear the previous owner's security code and input my own. I also fitted an IR security light. In winter, I put the heater on before breakfast, and by the time I've scoffed my bowl of porridge, it's up to 20C, which suits my old bones.
I built two benches, one with drawers and cupboards. The framwork is from 4 x 2 CLS, the top from rough sawn 6 x 2, glued and biscuit jointed together 2ft wide, then planed smooth with a power plane. My woodturning lathe sits on the bench where the wndows are and I can work on radios on the other bench. However, I usually work on a 'table' that I've made, which fits onto the lathe bed so I have natural light from the windows.
I've attched an external view of the workshop, a pic of the inside, and of the 'table' sitting on the lathe bed for me to work on radios. When I want to do wooturning, the table just lifts off. I've set out a few of the items that I tend t use most in restorations, someo f which are:
Soldering irons: One a 30Watt with a sloping bit - the other, for largr tags, a 40Watt chisel bit.
Wire strippers - a neat little jobby which strips wire at one end, and snips that cut it at the other end.
Brake cleaning fluid that I use copious amounts of for cleaning chassis, getting rid of wax, and so on, with a piant brush. It evaporates quickly, and leaves no residue. I'm not a fan of WD40 which leaves a residue (which is what it's designed to do).
Servisol - for switches and pots. It's served the trade well for decade as it has me. I'm too tight fisted to fork out for gimmicky things like De-oxit'!
A 1500V 0.1 cap with a croc clip at one end, for doing tests on AC/DC receivers.
Test leads which have the option of croc clips or prods, so for example I can clip toe 0V lead to the cahassis and use a prod in the live lead, or a croc clip if I prefer.
A homebrew signal injector/tester, which I've found over the years can locate a faulty stage (or a working one!) within minutes, so that the fault area can be narrowed down, rather than crawling all over the set making subjective assumptions about this or that which might or might not be at fault.
A homebrww ESR meter.
An illuminated magnifier and an LED light.
A lamp limiter.
Pointy pliers for bending and tugging at wires. (I also use Spencer Wells forceps for that).
A capacitance meter.
Insulated pliers.
There are lots of other things I could have included, but they're obvious -screwdrivers, nut spinners, solder sucker, isolating transformer, multimeter.
Much diagnosis can (and should) be carried with a set switched off and unplugged from the mains. Apart from being safer, it's kinder to the set, which - if it's faulty, can harm certain components such as OPTs. Continuity and resistance tests of coils, IFTs, speakers, output and mains transformers and droppers, valve heater chains, bulbs, and continuity of 'switchery' can all be tested without the set plugged in. Also the value of resistors to see if they're within spec. The only reason to switch on a set which is undergoing restoration, (apart from checking if it works!) is to check the voltages at various points after - not before, the above tests are carried out. That said, in a working set in which we're repalcing say waxies, it's a good idea to 'do a bit - test a bit', then that way, if the set stops working, it isn't eight waxies and five resistors we need to be wondering about - just the last bit we did!
I'm not saying that this is the only approach, but it's the one that works for me, which I've come to adopt after much needless hassle and disappointment over many years.
I hope it's of help and interest to others, and the pics of my 'Wendy house' workshop!
David
