The Horvaths
Young man with a cowboy hat
Amongst everything from silver- and blacksmithing to lapidary and faceting, I play with vacuum tubes and stuff too.
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Dad's "Other" Hobby
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The Horvaths
Young man with a cowboy hat
Dylan and I a few years back at a WV Power Wagon rally. The Shay locomotive was on the boil. We got to sit in the cab. See:
The Horvaths
Young man with a cowboy hat
I forgot to ask! What sort of unusual and esoteric hobbies do youse folk have on toppa the MOPAR hobby.
70bigblockdodge
Old Man with a Hat
Trying to keep a 31 year old Peterbilt on the road each day.
I spot the PMEL calibration sticker.
Mopars & Missiles
Well-Known Member
An old TEK scope! I used to use a couple of those years ago.
commando1
Old Man with a Hat
I collect beige Corelle dinnerware... :bored:
live4theking
Old Man with a Hat
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I don't know that mine is all that strange. I like to make plastic models; cars and planes. I like to shoot guns too, but that has become expensive.
Boomer
Active Member
Someone say "vacuum tubes"??? Old radios/shortwave/ham radio/etc used to take up most of my hobby time. Got interested back in high school and then played with cars and girls for a few years before getting back into it. After 30+ years of it the old car/truck bug bit again a few years ago. Still playing with radios when the weather outside is nasty. Usually at night after the girls are asleep. Fired up an old Atwater Kent a few nights ago for the first time since I got it back in '81 or so.
Still have an old Tek 545 scope stored at my folks place up north. It's not a real 'scope unless you need a cart to roll it around on.
At the risk of exposing my ubergeek alter ego, here are a few photos to illustrate my illnes...erm....interest.
My first thought is WOW... not just over all the gizmos and wonderful displays... But you have even managed to keep the dust off of everything... the cleaning alone qualifies as a hobby.
Boomer
Active Member
That's definitely a consideration. A few of the really old sets from WWI-early 20s I keep in a display case I got in a swap with a buddy. Think it was a candy case in an old general store.
It can get ahead of you pretty fast, though. Here are a couple shots taken prior to the move south when I had started staging stuff for packing and loading (another FUN chore). The camera was crappy, so that makes it look even worse, but I was traveling more back then and didn't stay ahead of it. The little shoeboxes are black wrinkled-painted WWII aircraft radios. They should look dark black, not grayish. The wooden radios look equally awful.
Still have stuff packed away with VT dust included. Yes, having 'stuff' has its drawbacks like anything else.
Still have an old Tek 545 scope stored at my folks place up north. It's not a real 'scope unless you need a cart to roll it around on.
We had a few of those carts at work. Nobody wanted them, so I took one home and cut it down and modified it for my wife to use on the patio to tend her plants.
69CoronetRT
Senior Member
Boomer, that's really impressive.
I'm only a rock star in my free time. (Well...at least in the small bars in my small town and in my small mind...).
I learned a long time ago that if you are going to be in the bar on a Saturday night, drinking beer, listening to music and trying to pickup girls, you may as well get paid for it.
Me on the right rockin the P-bass
I'm only a rock star in my free time. (Well...at least in the small bars in my small town and in my small mind...).
I learned a long time ago that if you are going to be in the bar on a Saturday night, drinking beer, listening to music and trying to pickup girls, you may as well get paid for it.
Me on the right rockin the P-bass
Boomer
Active Member
I'm only a rock star in my free time. (Well...at least in the small bars in my small town and in my small mind...).
I learned a long time ago that if you are going to be in the bar on a Saturday night, drinking beer, listening to music and trying to pickup girls, you may as well get paid for it.
Well, you got it right! Tried that a few times, never quite made it to the prime time (money) gigs. Garage bands, etc. The last go was with a Blues Group(I use that term very loosely) back in the mid 90s. They couldn't get through a song in rehearsal without stopping at least once, usually for the guitar freak to go off on some random solo or "try something else" moment. I was the guy who sat in the back and pounded on things, so I got bored easily.
Congrats on still being out there and able to rock it - and get your drinks paid for, too.
Thank you. I've got several more boxes of odd ball tubes boxed up, haven't had time to mount them on boards. It's amazing the number and sizes/shapes of different tubes that were made. Then again - everything electronic ran on tubes for several decades.
Here are a few shots of some 'lit' tubes: first from one of the transmitters, then from a couple of the 1920s TRF sets. The last shot is from a friend's big Westinghouse transmitter up in the Adirondacks, mercury vapor(blue) and xenon(violet) rectifier tubes. Very cool looking, was the cover for some radio calendar a few years back
Makes me feel old, I remember playing with a lot of that type of equipment back when it was new.
They are like works of art, very cool.
I did learn a log time ago not to try to touch the anode(?) connection at the top of the tube, while leaning on a signal generator with the other arm, with both of them turned on. It let me know in no uncertain terms that it didn't want to be touched !
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