What should I look for for parts at a giant garage sale?

[svstee]

My church does a HUGE garage sale to raise money every year, and by huge I mean you get tired walking from one end to another, brings in 65,000$ type huge. I was want to kill a couple birds with one stone by supporting what they are doing and getting old mojo parts and I was wondering what I should look for to parts out for the building of amps and FX. I've had good luck with '60's era radio receivers (Ge transistor payload!) stereo amplifiers and old speaker boxes and I'll be looking out for an old organ, but what else would be good to watch out for? I'm looking for primarily transformers, speakers, Ge transistors, tubes/sockets, enclosures, all the good stuff.

Thanks!

[Xelent]

Graphic EQs, Small Boxes (or other suitable enclosures). Wall warts (and jacks). Things with lots of switches, or knobs. Things with one cool switch, or knob.

[Wales]

I hear some old cd players have a JRC4558D chip in em,  but its not really worth it if you are paying for a working cd player cause i think the chip is .45 or.50 cents at smallbear. BUT, ENCLOSURES, ENCLOSURES, ENCLOSURSES!!! I have made pedals out of an old 35mm (sorry about the mm Americans it means millimeters, a unit of measurement the world has excepted) film spool winders, computer mounted beverage coolers, Kitchen timers, coffee cans, lamps, walkmans, and even VHS or 8 track tapes. Let the imagination loose!

Support the church though, not many people have that opinion but i do!

If nothing else there will at least be good food to spend $ on (if i know churches) and it might come with a tin to put a pedal in

[anchovie]

+1 on looking for great enclosures - check any toys that are being sold too as they can be fun for small amps. I've got a Noisy Cricket combo built in a Mickey Mouse lunchbox and a Ruby head inside a friendly-looking ladybird(ladybug).

[Nitefly182]

I hear some old cd players have a JRC4558D chip in em,  but its not really worth it if you are paying for a working cd player cause i think the chip is .45 or.50 cents at smallbear. BUT, ENCLOSURES, ENCLOSURES, ENCLOSURSES!!! I have made pedals out of an old 35mm (sorry about the mm Americans it means millimeters, a unit of measurement the world has excepted) film spool winders, computer mounted beverage coolers, Kitchen timers, coffee cans, lamps, walkmans, and even VHS or 8 track tapes. Let the imagination loose!

Support the church though, not many people have that opinion but i do!

If nothing else there will at least be good food to spend $ on (if i know churches) and it might come with a tin to put a pedal in

Nobody measures cameras in inches dude...

[Toney]

Look out for early to mid 60s electronics - portable radios, reel to reel tape players etc

Geranium-ness!

[petemoore]

  After a while you think you can spot salvage with no mojo.
  But I saw a tape deck thing, upon further inspection [reading the manual] I was able to see the metal caps of transistors and identify them as Ge's.
  Printers have nothing useful...except sorta large "HV" [~30Vdc is common] power supply in each one, the really nice ones [for salvaging PS's] have this outside the printer.
  If you're into working on high voltage amps [and understand the mortal dangers involved]...
  I tend to go for any tubestuff that looks like it has a transformer for power supply. Some early amps don't have a PT, without that...no ground for chassis is possible [can be done but...kinda blows the 'easy/inexpensive' vibe]...it's way easier to start with something thats easy to correctly bolt a ground to.

[Wales]

Nobody measures cameras in inches dude...

Don't tell your family photographer that!
Actually all film use to be measured in inches until the world switched to the metric system in 1970's. Now only small formats are in mm anything smaller than the 70mm used for imax. Professional photographers still use cameras that are loaded with 4 x 5, 5 x 7, 8 x 10 inch film stock. Sorry film is my business, but to common folk: yes nobody measures film in inches.

[SonicVI]

I have made pedals out of an old 35mm (sorry about the mm Americans it means millimeters, a unit of measurement the world has excepted)

accepted.   We call them 35mm over here too

[km-r]

i just saw a 20mm attached to a helicopter, i never thought of using it as an enclosure...

[svstee]

Well I got up at 5:15 this morning and headed out. Got some good stuff, just not what I expected. Not any tube stuff  or much worthwhile Ge transistor containing stuff  but I picked up a LOT of speakers, mostly from '70's era hi-fi sets.








Old stereo receiver, but not old enough. No Ge, I'll take the transformer, pots, switches and maybe CC resistors if I get desperate.




Any clue what this is? I thought they were weird shaped ceramic caps, but not with that many legs! Now I think they must be some kind of ICs.




This say "Little Gem" to anyone besides me? About a 5" speaker and a smaller one (mids?). I have 2.





Check out this wood, looks like Teak to me. 10$ for a pair of these.




Love the idea of a 2x10 guitar cab, just have to rewire and make sure I get all the impedances right.

[Scruffie]

I'd be interested in those block things, I have some vintage germanium radios with them in and never found out what they were, i see on your board theyre labelled PC and mine were labelled PAC, I did wonder if it meant package and they contain lots of resistors or caps or something but that's only a theory which is probably wrong.

Looks like a nice hall otherwise, some carbon comp, some speakers and reuseable cabinets so on.

[svstee]

Yeah, I think I spent around 40-50$ total. I got a toaster oven for painting boxes too.

[spudulike]

Those look like either resistor arrays or thick film filters.

[Dan N]

Any clue what this is? I thought they were weird shaped ceramic caps, but not with that many legs! Now I think they must be some kind of ICs.

Kind of a primitive IC made up of discreet parts encapsulated in brown stuff. Usually built to a manufacturers specs. Rosac and Mosrite made use of this (blech) technology.

Are those germaniums peeking over the top of that thing?

[svstee]

Electro caps...
There are around 5 different electro cap brands in that thing.

[Scruffie]

Possibly or probably dried up by now? Are those orange caps next to it spragues or something nice? But anyway plenty of carbon comps to harvest.

Mosrite used them you say... So they may have some use, the ones I have, not something i should just throw away as they were preventing me getting to germanium tranis in my radio harvesting but didn't know whether to carefully remove them or just chop them out.

[trixdropd]

Any clue what this is? I thought they were weird shaped ceramic caps, but not with that many legs! Now I think they must be some kind of ICs.

Kind of a primitive IC made up of discreet parts encapsulated in brown stuff. Usually built to a manufacturers specs. Rosac and Mosrite made use of this (blech) technology.

Are those germaniums peeking over the top of that thing?

That looks like a resister network to me.

[petemoore]

  Doesn't look beat to me..actually pretty clean.
  I always plug 'em in outside, I doubt you really need to on this unit, but I always do, never know when you're going to get a stinker. I like using [I wear glasses] a switchable outlet, that way I can stand back a bit...lol.
  You should be able to tell pretty quicky if the thing's stable or volatile, then the sound'll tell you soon enough what condition the caps are in, how well every function works.
  I like my stereo speakers, they just can't take beatings like 'musical instrument speakers'. I like the sound when they're set 'just so', and a hard compressor helps me keep them in their sweet zone without getting 'spiked' by raw guitar peaks.