what is that freaking awful smell?
 

That u get on your hands from replacing caps? omg is that nasty.

Never noticed any odd odors. :scratch2:

Now, you want funk...have a selenium rectifier go bad on you. :yuck:

Uhh-huh...Had one Go South in my E.H. Scott 800-B....Stunk the Ship's Radio Room up somethin' AWFUL...Liked to have NEVER got it out..

I thought a selenium went bad on him when I first saw the subject line.

When dealing with old leaky caps, there is sometimes an odor... I assume it's from the degraded electrolyte. I would describe it as kind of a cross between dead fish and wet dog.

I'm oddly curious as to what bad selenium actually smells like.

You can sometimes get a whiff of it by touching a soldering iron or gun to the plated side of selenium rectifier section.

Or burn one, just not indoors of course.

Or...a wet and dead dogfish...

Reminds me of a cross between a really bad diaper blowout and a rotting onion.

Not a smell you will soon forget...:D

"Sex Panther" cologne anyone?

I wash my hands a LOT when working on old sets. Even more so when pulling old tubes out of boxes that are half-eaten away.

Sandy, you were Sparky on a ship?

That pile of Ratvisions comes to mind too.

Man, that was sooo gross! And the smell... YUK!