Seasoned caps or foolish buyers in season?
 

For all these years now, I'd been tossing these in the trash after snipping them out. Seems tired/expired caps are all the rage, nowadays, maybe someone on AK can explain the allure of leaky caps to me. If I were to have ten dollars (yes, $39.99 for four, look at this listing) for every 50-plus-year-old bumblebee or black beauty turned flyback-killer I tossed, I'd be quite wealthy.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll..._promot_widget

I see stuff like that from time to time. I'm not sure why people buy em. Why buy something that just isn't as reliable? I can see people gutting their originals and stuffing them with new ones for an authentic look, but I would never buy vintage caps. its just asking for trouble.

They may as well take their money, toss it in the air & go "Whee !" for all the good those old junky caps are..

People who restore vintage electric guitars want authenticity and say that they prefer the sound that results. Similar to the audiophools who rave about that "warm tube sound" from old gear. I suspect some of these are going into guitar amps, as well.

Maybe it's not that crazy. Half of the controls on my s-s guitar amp are there to create distortion of one sort or another. Think of fuzz boxes, etc.

I doubt there's much risk in an electric guitar, where there can't be much voltage involved. I would be more concerned about putting these in an amp, however.

Look at this way -- another source of income for us radio/TV types who automatically replace all caps of this type.

Phil Nelson

Phil Nelson wrote: "People who restore vintage electric guitars want authenticity and say that they prefer the sound that results."

I could never quite figure out what these vintage guitarists want. Do they want the sound produced by leaky caps? If so, then why change out the leaky caps that are already in the amp with other leaky caps? If they want authenticity, like the amp orginally sounded, then they need to install new non-leaky caps. I suppose they think the amps were built with leaky caps.

"... why change out the leaky caps that are already in the amp with other leaky caps?"

Maybe they are removing the perfectly good caps modern caps that a previous owner installed, and adding these old bad caps?

And not only is this ridiculous, the whole "relic-ing" guitars now... it disgusts me.

At my local music store last week I saw a BRAND NEW Telecaster that had been made to look old. Worn fretboard, varnish missing off the body, belt buckle rash, etc. And it was priced higher than one in unused mint condition. Go figure. I think it came from Fender that way as well.

I wouldn't be surprised. Same idea as when radio/TV restorers "restuff" original caps with new ones, to maintain the original appearance -- even though nobody but a future repairman will ever look under the chassis.

Phil Nelson

The listing has 125 hits, but still no bidders...

Being a big fan of Sprague caps, I wonder if this series had the "Difilm" construction, and whether they still use foil vs. sprayed-on metal as I assume the current 225P series, for example, does. Maybe someone with some catalogs can research this. I also remember Cornell-Dubilier being mentioned as a source of Bumblebees.

I actually have some NOS 160P .1 @200's in my stock, they have no date code. My Tel-Ohmike is in storage, so I can't definitely measure them right now. I got them from Radar Electric's "wall of jars" in 1986. Any other AK'ers in the NW remember going there? It was like being a kid in a candy store, but the jars were full of NOS caps, resistors, transistors, etc. that were overflow or de-stocked.

I've been told too many horror stories by too many guys who know a LOT more about this stuff than I do to risk it..A lot of the parts/tubes in the stuff I fool with are basically unobtainium, I don't wanna risk a rare & valuable radio or TV for a buck-or-2 cap..In an R-390A, there's one cap you ALWAYS replace, because if it dies, it can take out a Collins mechanical filter...That's a BIG "No-no"...

I had some NOS Black Beauties. I was given a Motorola radio for Christmas one year and the giver insisted I try it out. After playing for a minute there was an explosion. When I pulled the chassis one of the original Black Beauties had turned to confetti. I replaced it with one of my NOS ones. After a couple minutes it turned to confetti just exactly like the first one. Now it has a new cap.

And if Terry DeWick were to chime in, he would tell us that most of the old capacitors have a limited life. That's what he told me and I looked at a hand full of old and cracked capacitors that failed the cap checker.

But if they are good, you don't know how much mileage they have on them, i.e. how long to death.