I started on a new project tonight. I found a couple Ampex 350 machines for sale somewhat locally. Took the drive out last night to pick them up. They are both pretty dirty. One is in pretty good shape. The other is a little rough around the edges. I have enough spare parts to fully restore both machines back to their former glory. Both came out of a radio station. I decided I would start on the machine in better condition. Took the electronics apart and set them up on the work bench. Before I power anything on, I always go through it with a fine toothed comb. After opening up the bottom plate, I found about 50 old acorns. Who knows how those got in there. A quick blow with air solved that. These machines had also been modified for use with a Stromberg Carlson 85 watt amp to be controlled from the faceplate of the Ampex. That's the holes you see in the front of the faceplate. I removed the power/ volume control and put that back with the amp. Next up, they moved the line term switch to the front as well. I reversed that and reinstalled it in its normal position. It was a tight squeeze but it went in just fine. While inside, I found a wire that was wrapped around it's terminal, but never soldered. Flowing some solder onto the terminal was oddly satisfying. After testing the power supply cable and AC line for shorts, I plugged it into my light bulb limiter and ran that to my variac. Observing current draw, I slowly brought up the voltage. One of the switches was really dirty and put out a nasty pop to the VU needle which caused it to stick in the "max" position. That's ok, because in fixing that it gave me an excuse to open up the VU meter bulb sockets and clean those out. After a little wipe down, both bulbs work without being intermittent like they were before. The record gain is a little noisy, but I was really surprised it passed decent audio right away. I'll do some tube swapping which will most likely solve the noise issues. The playback gain has the normal Ampex hiss but is otherwise noise free. Cleaning out the pots and switches will help too. The next step is to go through everything with some cleaner. The exposed parts are really dirty. The pots and switches will need the typically conditioning with deoxit and maybe a burnishing brush. Once the electronics are perfect, it'll be time to connect them back to the transport to start on that. Stay tuned!

I started on a new project tonight. I found a couple Ampex 350 machines for sale somewhat locally. Took the drive out last night to pick them up. They are both pretty dirty. One is in pretty good shape. The other is a little rough around the edges. I have enough spare parts to fully restore both machines back to their former glory. Both came out of a radio station. I decided I would start on the machine in better condition. Took the electronics apart and set them up on the work bench. Before I power anything on, I always go through it with a fine toothed comb. After opening up the bottom plate, I found about 50 old acorns. Who knows how those got in there. A quick blow with air solved that. These machines had also been modified for use with a Stromberg Carlson 85 watt amp to be controlled from the faceplate of the Ampex. That's the holes you see in the front of the faceplate. I removed the power/ volume control and put that back with the amp. Next up, they moved the line term switch to the front as well. I reversed that and reinstalled it in its normal position. It was a tight squeeze but it went in just fine. While inside, I found a wire that was wrapped around it's terminal, but never soldered. Flowing some solder onto the terminal was oddly satisfying. After testing the power supply cable and AC line for shorts, I plugged it into my light bulb limiter and ran that to my variac. Observing current draw, I slowly brought up the voltage. One of the switches was really dirty and put out a nasty pop to the VU needle which caused it to stick in the "max" position. That's ok, because in fixing that it gave me an excuse to open up the VU meter bulb sockets and clean those out. After a little wipe down, both bulbs work without being intermittent like they were before. The record gain is a little noisy, but I was really surprised it passed decent audio right away. I'll do some tube swapping which will most likely solve the noise issues. The playback gain has the normal Ampex hiss but is otherwise noise free. Cleaning out the pots and switches will help too. The next step is to go through everything with some cleaner. The exposed parts are really dirty. The pots and switches will need the typically conditioning with deoxit and maybe a burnishing brush. Once the electronics are perfect, it'll be time to connect them back to the transport to start on that. Stay tuned!