Bill Jeffrey wrote in
:

bz wrote:

I may do that and run a small rat tail file in and out of each pin in
the tub sockets.

NO NO NO! The sockets contacts are plated (tin?).

Sometimes tin, sometimes silver, gold on the best, IF I remember
correctly.

A file will remove the
plating, opening up the base metal to further corrosion. Instead, spray
some contact cleaner into the sockets, and then run something scrubby
but non-abrasive through them, like a pipe cleaner.

Pipe cleaners (those I am familiar with) are usually too thick for
miniature tube sockets (might work on octal but not loctal) and many are
built on a wire base that could distort the shape of the spring. Perhaps a
wooden toothpick, used with caution.


Someone else suggested touching up the tube pins with fine emery cloth.
That's OK - tubes are replaceable. But in practical terms, sockets are
not.

You have a good point. I wouldn't have taken that step unless things were
really bad. I may need to use a sharply pointed tool to 'tighten' some of
the sockets, but, again, that is a last resort.

I do think that many of the strange problems I have been seeing are due to
bad connections on the tubes. I 'made the mistake' of seating them fully.

Looking at the tube pins closely, I can see that they have been a fraction
of an inch ABOVE the 'fully seated' position for many years and the pins
have oxidized on the exposed areas. Seating them fully was thus a mistake
on my part.



Bill






--
bz 73 de N5BZ k

please pardon my infinite ignorance, the set-of-things-I-do-not-know is an
infinite set.

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