Hiwatt barn find

tbm

He's asking WAY to much for it. I mean, it's not as if you can wipe it down and it'll be fine. Still a pretty nifty thing to find in a dusty barn.

http://www.adverts.ie/5166601

ICBM

Just for once it does genuinely look like it was found in a barn, too.

Also agree on the price. It could be an almost complete write-off, depending on how damp it's been - quite, judging by the rust on the chassis. It will certainly need very extensive restoration to the tune of several hundred pounds, at the very least.

svejk

Hey, it was working in 1989. Seems like yesterday - it was probably sold by the Happy Mondays for crack.

impmann

Yes, but a "vintage Marshall 4x12" comes free with it.

I'm not sure that is too much - a vintage one in working order can be getting on for the thick end of a bag of sand, so bearing in mind that's Euros and a resto may cost a couple or three hundred quid, its not that far wrong, really. Plus its a HiWatt - massively over-engineered, built like a shit house etc... and easy to work on. Even I can fault find them!! :-) 

ICBM

impmann said:

Yes, but a "vintage Marshall 4x12" comes free with it.

I'm not sure that is too much - a vintage one in working order can be getting on for the thick end of a bag of sand, so bearing in mind that's Euros and a resto may cost a couple or three hundred quid, its not that far wrong, really.

Or a lot worse, if a transformer winding has corroded through. Or both of them. It does happen…

I didn't see the bit about the 4x12" at first, but if it has woodworm and/or rot and the speaker cones are knackered, it's worthless. All this happens when stuff gets left in storage conditions like that.

I would want to see it and if possible do some testing before offering anything at all, really. (Which does NOT mean "turning it on to see if it works"!) I've seen enough basket cases like that to not be highly enthusiastic about the "lost treasure" aspect of it.

tbm

ICBM said:

It could be an almost complete write-off, depending on how damp it's been

It's been in a barn in Limerick since 1989. I reckon it's been pretty damp.

impmann said:

a resto may cost a couple or three hundred quid, its not that far wrong, really. Plus its a HiWatt - massively over-engineered, built like a shit house etc... and easy to work on. Even I can fault find them!! :-) 

mmmm....interesting.

Antique_Guitars

I dunno man if you can get it working for £300 then its not a bad deal to me.

ICBM

Antique_Guitars said:

I dunno man if you can get it working for £300 then its not a bad deal to me.

If… yes.

Or you could be buying a rotten shell, a rusted chassis and two dead transformers, and need to strip it completely and  essentially build a new amp to fix it, which will cost the thick end of the price of buying a good one and be less valuable since it won't be very 'original'. You won't know which of these it is without doing some work on it.

I know someone with quite a lot of stuff like this. Many of the vintage amps which you would expect to be lost treasures going by the models are no more than scrap parts which may be useful to fix some of the others - just too far gone. Sad, but that's what happens when you leave electronics in damp conditions for thirty years.

Antique_Guitars

Yeah that ampstack guy has loads of rare dead amps doesn't he?

impmann

This is very true, actually.

I rescued quite a few AC30s back in the 90s that were worth pennies at the time... some came back to life but some had too much wrong with them to be saved, so became parts. Its true that condensation gets into the core of the transformer and then that eats away at them unseen... I saw one where the guy had just plugged it into the mains straight out of a shed and it had literally blown apart. Also rot and worm can wreak havoc with the cabs - and the damp wrecks the suspension on the speakers too... 

I don't know Limerick too well - and perhaps I had my rose-tints on!! :-)

ecc83

I would ask the vendor to get a PAT cert for it. 

Like IC said, it is likely the transformers are "leaky" and won't pass. Even if the mains traff was ok the OPT has MANY more volts on it and could go POOOF! At the first blast. 

I would risk a nifty in sterling on the head but no more.

Dave.

ICBM

ecc83 said:

Like IC said, it is likely the transformers are "leaky" and won't pass. Even if the mains traff was ok the OPT has MANY more volts on it and could go POOOF! At the first blast.

I have had some luck with powering them up veeeeeerrrrrrrry slowly on a Variac, with temporary replacement filter caps in place - like over a whole day, to allow the heat from the current to dry out the windings. Even then it's not foolproof.

The oddest one was a Marshall with an intermittently arcing PT which for some odd reason - a hunch really, and with nothing to lose - I decided to run up to 300V with a current limiter bulb on the input, just to the point it was going into saturation - to my surprise, after a couple of false starts it actually fixed it! It must have burned away the spot that was arcing. It then ran absolutely fine even when tested thoroughly at 250, and flipping the mains switch on and off to try to make the problem come back. It didn't.

I did advise the owner that it was NOT guaranteed though! But at least it still had its original transformer.

I have to admit I hate working on stuff in this sort of condition. You never know when you'll have already spent hours on it, cleaning up a filthy corroded mess, and then it will turn out to be a no-go after all when you work out how much it will cost, after you find some other hidden snag. There's really no point you can relax until it will run at full power on test, at which point you've already done most of the work.

So forgive me for not being wildly excited about this one…

noisepolluter

tbm said:

It's been in a barn in Limerick since 1989. I reckon it's been pretty damp.

I found an old amp in a barn

And another submerged in a tarn

...

Gassage

OK, the key here are the transformers. if they work, I'd pay £450 for it all day long.

Partridges are the key to 'Watts.

THe caps will need sorting £150
New valves- £200
New Pots- £200
Hmmmmm]

I'd value a good one at £1000 and a minter at £1250.

It is a very early Hylight- 69 or 70.

impmann

£200 for pots? Really?

Gassage

It'll need 8 + two intput jacks, then the Pete Cornish bridging mod (for me anyway). £200 includes fitting.

It would cost £600-700 to restore electonically and test properly. I haven't even thought about valve seats....

Also will certainly need a new power in as the bakealite one will be fucked.

£700 is possibly a little cheap.

Gassage

Dated it- late 71 early 72

Phil_aka_Pip

noisepolluter said:

tbm said:

It's been in a barn in Limerick since 1989. I reckon it's been pretty damp.

I found an old amp in a barn

And another submerged in a tarn

...

Its control pots were rusted
It sounded like busted
And that is the end of my yarn

DartmoorHedgehog

Bugger, somebody's already finished the Limerick thing...  oh well, I'll post it anyway...

I found an old amp in a barne
And another submerged in a tarne
They're not worth a lot
But they're running so hot
I could cook up a chilli con carne

Sorry

Phil_aka_Pip

I found an old amp in a barn

And another submerged in a tarn

The control pots were rusty

It smelt rather fusty

But I liked what I found on the farm

strtdv

I bought a 70's orange that had spent a few years in a barn, but it was in better cosmetic shape than that and cost me £150.

The original pots were actually fine and the transformers were good, but one of the speakers needed reconed (I wanted the original speaker rather than a replacement).

Speaker recone- £50

Screen resistors, rectifier diodes and reverb circuit repair- £50

Cap job- £150

New valves- £50 (a lot of the original Brimar preamp valves were very good, still using some of them)

Ended up with a lot of amp for £450, but it's impossible to know until you troubleshoot it if it's worth restoring.

Before:

Crude standby switch added prior to me finding it: