Free Thomas Organ?

[pryde]

Someone local is giving away a non-functioning free Thomas organ. A few questions for the salvagers among us:

Any certain type/model for a "good" one? Any model to avoid?
Is it worth the time/effort to drag one of these things home and tear it apart for goodies?
What kind of goodies are in there to be had?

Thanks for some input!

[culturejam]

A lot of those organs have 12AU7 tubes and sometimes rectifier tubes that are useful for guitar amps.

There are probably some germanium transistors in there too. If not, they will be the cool metal can silicons. Either way, pretty cool.

Whether it is worth the hassle or not, I can't say. If you have a truck and a buddy or two willing to help you bring it to your house and then to the dump, I can't see how it would be a losing proposition.

[jtn191]

Timbo said some models have some of the same transistors as old thomas organ wahs--low gain goodness

[jeffaroo]

give it a whirl, i jump on old rotten crap at garage sales and get lucky sometimes. old crap wasnt built so tight so you can get a little more length on the leads sometimes. one time i got a old board and the holes were about 3/4" away from the components on each side. it was like desoldering heaven

[atreidesheir]

when you see it, you will know.

[timbo_93631]

I can't resist a free organ, the Lowrey I gutted almost 2 years ago is still giving me the nicest wire I have ever worked with, great transistors, and a horde of mojo orange drops.  I'd suggest picking it up and salvaging everything you can if you are up to the task of much disassembly and desoldering. 

[timbo_93631]

Bringing up a necropost, but again I encourage you guys to pick up free organs if you have the time and space to disassemble one as there are great treasures to be found in almost any organ.  For instance: 

In the past few months I scored a Thomas Organ, a T-233 Hammond, and yesterday a cheesy 70's Yamaha and a '72 Conn that is so chock full of goodies I am freaking out. 

Just a quick overview of what is in the Conn:
- Two .222H inductors that both measured 260mH, good values for some Vox "Grey" wah clones! 
- Some 1H and 1.5 H inductors, Supa Wah! 
- Three 500mH red epoxied toroids on the old style stack of dimes base. 
- Hundreds of red molded 100v axial caps and silver foil ITW/Paktron 100v (think Thomas Organ Crybaby caps) in useful wah values like .22uf and .01uf.
- A buttload of 2n2925's and unmarked diodes. 
- Probably 50 feet of Topcoat wire.  Glorious 24awg topcoat. 
- Two Rola 12's with felt duscapts, doping, tiny magnets, and 3/4" voice coils that are perfect for the kind of 5 watt SE amps I like to build. 
- Two Speed Leslie with a brown frame C8R with the seamed ribbed cone.

The Thomas I got has an incredible amount of blue molded 200v caps and a few 600v.  The power amp has a 6973 output section and the PT to run 4 preamp tubes so a single channel Supro 6424 with verb might have to be built from it.

The Hammond T-233 also has a bunch of great parts, mostly a tone generator that operates freely that I can pop in my ailing M-103 with a bit of work.  My M-103's TG came unstuck after years of sitting without oil, but it has one bearing that is going bad and sometimes squeals which is no bueno.  From the T-233 there is also a heap of red molded 100v caps, and germanium transistors. Tons of germaniums.  Also another Leslie.

Expect to see some of this stuff in the FS section soon.

[bcalla]

Hmmm.  Interesting post.  A couple of months ago I passed on a 70s Wurlitzer.  I checked with one of my keyboard playing friends and he said it wasn't worth the trouble of moving it.  I was thinking of playing it, not dismantling it.