Hello from Virginia

[Electronic M]

Welcome! If your killing power transformers you probably have shorted lytics, shorted rectifiers, shorted B+ rails, or bad luck. Recapping is important to keeping these sets alive, just as much as returning life to them.
Consider taking some Electrical Engineering courses to help you with the basics. As someone who was recapping radios by the time I was 10 or 11 and working on TVs by highschool (first success junior year). I knew much of the course material in my EE major, in the first 2-3 years, before my profs could teach it to me.....I used to blow their minds with insightful questions in the early years.

Originally Posted by Olorin67

Welcome, Glad to know I wasnt the only odball with tube gear in my dorm room...

You've met my friend Chris at the WARCI swap meets. He had the guts of a tube Admiral stereo console as his dorm stereo about 2-3 years ago before he returned to living at home and started commuting to school daily.....As I did all along.

If I had a dorm room instead of being a commuter student living at home, I'd have had tube stuff in my room.....As much of my current rig as I could fit....Glad to be a grad since spring!