Eico amps

rca2000

Super Member
I have a couple of old eico tube amps, i found in my old storage garage. I am cleaning it out, and moving my old, valuable stuff ,to a new, dry location near me.

The amps are -- hf-81 ,and st-40. The problem is, mice have gotten to BOTH of them, and , in the st-40, there was a mouse nest. the chassis of both amps have rust, as the mice obviously have urinated all over them.

Are these amps of any value?or are they trash? the fronts of both of them are not too bad,with the original knobs, and all iron looks to be intact. They would need some major cleaning, and rust removal ,to be restored.I wish i had known about the mice,beforehand, but--- that's the way it goes, I guess.
 
Pictures Jack, pictures!

Oh bTW, one of my cats just asked. Do you still have the mice? :D
 
Pictures

For some reason, my pictures that I load on the computer form my polaroid digital camera, won't transfer to other files. So, i can't show pictures(yet). I a few days a friend of mine is going to show me what i am doing wrong, so I can post pictures.
 
Don't despair! I've pulled some nasty units back from mouse-inflicted disaster. I know this will cause some shaking heads, but what I do is take off the case and bottom plate, put it in a large work sink, fill a spray bottle with mild bleach solution, and neutralize all the piss. Then use a citrus-based cleaner and a toothbrush and scrub everything. Rinse well, dry well, use WD-40 to displace moisture in the transformer lams. When thoroughly dry, use a rust preventative. If there IS already rust, use a real rust STOPPER. You can get a black gooey substance that adheres to rust and hardens. It won't ever be beautiful, but it can be made clean and useable. But don't fire it up until you're really sure it's dry! Heat lamps, the sun, blow dryer, maybe a week in that dry spot over the hot water heater...

I once paid pretty good money for a Fisher FM-200, only to discover afterward it had this problem. :mad: But now I know it can be corrected. I would be interested in these if you don't want to do the cleanup.

Tubino
 
Hey Jack,

A real nice HF-81 can be worth a couple of hundred or more and the ST-40 alittle less. But like tubino said they should clean up with alittle work and elbo grease. Hopefully the mice did not chew up any wires or components in either amp when they made their nest.
 
Look in the sticky at the top of the page for info on bringing an old amp to life after a long storage including how to bake them to get rid of moisture. By the way the power tubes of the 40 if they are all in very good condition are easily worth $100. Eico used mostly Mullards for 12AX7s and 6BQ5s which are all worth some good money. Be very careful with the tubes so that you don't remove the decals because then their value would be almost gone. I am just telling you this in case you decide not to clean these things up. Even after mice these units are worth money but the tubes won't be worth much separatly if you clean the decals off. And the decals come of easily.
 
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