[SEL] OT: The Hammond's Singing Again!

[John Culp]

I got the Hammond M3 in The Loyal Bereans' classroom singing today. 
I've been working on it a bit off and on for 3 weeks or so, where it 
is. Didn't take as much work as I thought, so it's going to stay there 
where everyone can enjoy it. I'll hunt for another. Basically all it 
took was getting the unused tone generator turning by oiling it and 
helping it turn over by hand at first (the starter clutch is still 
sticky, but it'll start itself after a few tries), testing all the 
tubes and replacing 4 of them. The 5U4 rectifier was just about dead. 
Don't know what B+ voltage the rest of the tubes were running on, but 
it had to be really low. The funky noises in the vibrato channel were 
from a 6C4 with a flickering short in it. The pitifully low volume 
(even after getting the power supply working, which boosted it about 20 
dB) was from the 12AX7 that's the last 2 audio amp stages before the 
phase inverter for the output stage having been replaced with a 12AU7A. 
Way too low gain. Sure sounds sweet now, and with plenty of volume! I 
called the music director, so hopefully he'll be playing it for 
tonight's service that's held in that Sunday school room.


John Culp
Bristol, Tennessee, USA