Why so often is there poorly done old repair jobs?

[Chad Hauris]

On many of the things I have worked on that have had prior repairs I have noticed pretty sloppy repair jobs. I am now working on a 1930's Arvin radio which had capacitors replaced and the joint was made by just laying the lead on the terminal and putting a little bit of solder on it, leaving a very weak connection. On a 1971 Curtis Mathes set there was a resistor replaced and there was not even any solder on the joint. A 1950's Magnavox TV had a new yoke put on and the wires to it were just twisted to the old leads, no solder, not even black tape insulation.

I know repairmen were in a crunch for time to try and get the most sets repaired to be profitable but it doesn't take much more time in most cases to do a good job vs. a sloppy job. Have you all seen this sort of thing in your equipment?

[Sandy G]

Possibly these were done by an amateur-Someone who had just enuff knowlege "To Be Dangerous"...

[Electronic M]

I've seen some slopy repairs my self. On more than one of the radios I've worked on I've seen new lytics merely soldered across the existing unit. I have a color set where the better part of a lug on the damper socket was torn off by the previous tech, and instead of replacing the socket the lead was tacked to the remaining stub with a blob of solder. I have had both radios and TVs that were missing screws becaues of previous work (I've also been the cause of missing screws).

You have to consider that some of these sets were being used by folks for so long that some times if the work was not dirt cheap (or super quick) the tech would not get the job or would be welched on the bill. Also all types owned electronics and I'm sure there were many house calls where the client(s) made the tech want to scram quick.

[jr_tech]

Some of the worst workmanship that I have seen was on repairs that I did myself as a kid! At the time, I was using a large Weller soldering gun (way too big for most repairs)... Big blobs of solder, splatters in the chassis, overheated components. Oh well, I got better with practice!
jr

[Chad Hauris]

I really have improved a lot too! I still have some things I repaired from when I was a kid and wiring splices were insulated with duct tape, etc.

[compu_85]

Originally Posted by Chad Hauris

Have you all seen this sort of thing in your equipment?

I've seen it looking at friend's cars after they've been to other repair shops. Cut wires, stripped bolts, parts not put back in correctly... some people just don't care, and shouldn't be allowed to own or use a screwdriver.

-J

[zenith2134]

...which brings to mind how so many TVs were reassembled without all the screws. They were too lazy to put all the screws back!

And sometimes the repairs are indistinguishable from the job the factory would do.

[timmy]

it all comes down to one thing and thats money and greed,get it done quick and get out and if it works they got paid anyway, oh and the warranty ran out as the tech ran out the door.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by Chad Hauris

I really have improved a lot too! I still have some things I repaired from when I was a kid and wiring splices were insulated with duct tape, etc.

I seen people that used band-aids for wire splicing.

[marty59]

Not only are you doing a repair/restore but too many times you have to correct someone else's repair work before you can proceed with your own!

I still have a Graymark tube amplifier that I built in high school and with the exception of me burning/melting the wire insulation in various places I really didn't do too bad!

[HiFiCanada]

Back in it's time, it was usually the customers fault by choice, get it done cheap, we are getting a new set soon, and their choice of were they took in in for repairs.
Very low profits, rushed service techs, and many of the good shops already closed.

[holmesuser01]

Guilty as charged. When I was working for a small shop in Asheville back in the olden days, I was told to waste no time getting it back to the customer. The owner had no problem soldering electrolytics across the bad ones just to cure the "problem" and get it out of the shop. I did that for awhile, before I realized that these same units were coming back with essentially the same problem, again. During the years that I had my shop, I never left an old part in the circuit, and rarely had a unit come back with the same problems a 2nd time.

I look back on things I repaired when I was a kid: Uggh. The unit still works, but really needs some TLC to fix what I fixed.

[Celt]

I had a scary one brought to me yesterday. A Peavy PA mixer/amplifier. Someone had done a half-assed job of replacing the six-lug power switch and AC cord. They used a too-small Heyco cable grip, which nearly pinched the cord in half. Adding to that, they patched it in (in a rather haphazard manner) with electrical tape and left grey, crusty solder blobs on the switch. I cut away the bad area of cord with the crimp and splices and re-did all solder joints. I also replaced the Heyco grip with a proper sized piece.

[old_tv_nut]

Soldering iron? I thought you said slobbering iron!

I worked for Western Electric a couple of summers installing central office switch gear, and they sent us to class to learn soldering to their standards. And soldering was only a supplementary fix for wire wraps that didn't have the required minimum number of turns. All parts and work expected to last at least 25 years without failure.

[Username1]

Also now that you are all "restoring" sets, not repairing for someone else, you are willing to go way beyond work normally done for profit. No One Ever Re-stuffed a Can Cap like we do for Restoration. Just like how a model T restored today is often many times more reliable than when they were in service. How many of us way over rate the caps we replace, while if you needed to turn a profit you may have just got hundreds at the best price. I remember many times working on the same set, and not having to diagnose the problem, but knowing from the set before exactly what part to change for a specific symptom, and often clipped it on top of the board, and soldered the new part to the wires from the old part above the board, not having to remove the chassis from the cabinet. What you guys find now as what you think were unreliable looking repairs, you have to think, were they done 30 years ago? well, they worked pretty well then didn't they..... A really cool radio show when I was a kid use to regularly talk about his electronics hobby as a kid and talked about people selling used parts cut out of junked radios, used tubes, and looking at some of the pictures you guys have posted of fleets of vans from shops going out every day, wow you know some of those guys were not professionals..... Look at tv repair today, Techs today of all kinds are just parts changers, no real diagnostic smarts necessary, if it were not for plug in stuff, imagine how things would look. I have seen people tape in replacement parts, glue them in, WOW.