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Fisher 500C Funeral!

audiodon said:
A moderator I conferred with about this sad story reminded me of something that I want to mention to everyone who ships a Fisher tuner or receiver:
Remove the tuning flywheel weight before shipping one of these. I believe it's held on with a set screw or allen screw. Removing the weight won't affect the dial string and if the thing takes a jolt, the tuning arm shaft or the support bracket won't get bent.
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The guy that did the packing should be Keelhauled from a CVN (Carrier) in shark infested water @ 30knots. Bet he doesn't survive in one piece either!! That is just GROSS NEGLIGENCE!!!


the only real way to pack these is in solid foam planks and bubble wrap, inside of double boxes. I've used expand a foam into gallon sized zip sealed baggies for the corners, let it expand and settle some before they harden, then put them in trash bags, and mush the unit into the bags at 4 corners bottom and top. Then pack with foam planks (cutting holes for the knobs to relieve stress) in double boxes.



remember my 400's bracket? got pushed back about a 1/4". I think you said you were gonna see about fabricating a transport block to alleviate such actions for future units.

Larry
 
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Thanks for the condolences! :tears:

Just wish I would of learned this lesson with a rusty, corroded, knobless, scratched up 500-C instead of pristine! But life goes on and we'll get it straightened out.

I feel even worse cause Gigabyt didn't want to ship and I'm the idiot that convinced him to do this! :no:

-Kory
 
Well, after the condolences, allow me to make you feel a little better...that's really quite fixable.:yes:

The bent faceplate can be straightened, and with a little luck you won't even be able to tell it was ever bent. Pad it carefully, clamp the unbent portion to a workbench top, pad and clamp the bent corner between two pieces of wood with something like a woodworker's clamp, and bend it back. Go slow. You'll need to go very slightly past the midpoint so that when it springs back a little bit it will be flat. It's aluminum, it's soft, and you'll be surprised how easy you can straighten it. As long as the finish wasn't bent enough to crinkle, it should straighten out without damage.

Dial glasses come up on eBay quite frequently, and usually in the $25-30 range. Slide switches come up even more often, usually $10-15 each.

You can do this, and it should be as good as it was.:thmbsp:

Btw, for anybody about to ship one of these: Do NOT wrap bubblewrap around the front panel. It WILL snag the slide switches, and it WILL snap them off.
 
As if my audio luck couldn't get any worse, I had a guy lined up to purchase my pilot 602, completed recapped/canned by sanford12 and vaughn. Guy drives all the way from Pittsburgh. I was listening to the Pilot all morning and sounding great. 5 minutes before his arrival...output tube archs and red plates immediately....I shut her down, threw in another pair of russian junkers to see if it was tube or pilot....after about 5 minutes the russian tube begins to red plate :no:

Talk about feeling like an ass...Although he was still willing to buy it for significantly less than I was asking, I decided to hang onto it and summons you folk's help to figure out what blew.

Sigh.....
 
On a positive note, I'm glad the Pilot had it's issues BEFORE he took it home. I would of felt even worse if it did that the first time he fired it up!
 
Your story (and the thread of Audiodon linked here) remind me that two (or was it three?) weeks ago, a poor packing job gave this:

IMGP1716.jpg


IMGP1712.jpg


IMGP1708.jpg


Luckily, the faceplate ended like this after repair (and the plastic dial is now replaced with a fresh one but I had to buy a LT-10. This one has now the broken dial instead):

IMGP1727.jpg


**As a sidenote, I mentioned the seller of the LT-10 that the 350 arrived partially damaged and asked him to pack carefully as I didn't wanted to buy a replacement unit to have another broken dial...

Well, it took me around 20 minutes to unpack the LT-10. Sufficient to say that it was the best packing I ever see for a tube unit I own.

Yesterday, replacement jewels for my FM-200-B tuner arrived home... completely smashed!!!

Look at this:
IMGP1751.jpg


Fortunately, the seller will ship me a second set... in bigger box carefully stuffed to avoid a repetition of the drama.

That's probably the sympathetic people working at USPS or Canada's Post Office...

Obviously, I sympathize with you and hope it'll turn well in the end.

Patrice
 
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DAMN Patrice!!! Looks like someone @ UPS/FEDEX is checking for tube stuff with Hammers!!

2oz of parts, 20lbs of packing........a maybe viable part anymore.

Larry
 
larryderouin said:
DAMN Patrice!!! Looks like someone @ UPS/FEDEX is checking for tube stuff with Hammers!!

2oz of parts, 20lbs of packing........a maybe viable part anymore.

Larry
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In my case, it's USPS or Canada Post...

Anyway, yes, some guys or gals are waiting tube gear with hammers...

The jewel seller's is amazed at the job done as normally, his stuff arrive safe in a simple envelope.
 
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Thanks Guy's for all the posting of all this stuff! :sigh:

I will never even bother to use one of these commercial shipping stores.

I guess I was lucky finding a local independent packaging store that has been in business for 30 yrs and understood the fragile electronics and electrostatic speakers I was shipping

I had a pair of Acoustat Monitor X's with 100 watt Tube Mono blocks along with an extra pair of mono's to ship across country and luckily everything arived perfect with my buyer telling me the packaging was impressive and could be reused. That cost was $600 and was split between the buyer and myself.

The buyer thought I could just package it myself! But I insisted on my shipper who was an expert at shipping worldwide and man was it worth it!

But whoa!!! have I learned a lesson here!


SET12
 
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Oh man that hurts!!! I have been lucky to have received lots of tube gear, mostly ham radio stuff and some hi-fi in excellent condition due to over-packing, one can never over protect any item as far as Im concerned and the party doing the packaging/shipping must take into consideration that there might be some rough handling on the part of the carrier.
 
gip111 said:
Oh man that hurts!!! I have been lucky to have received lots of tube gear, mostly ham radio stuff and some hi-fi in excellent condition due to over-packing, one can never over protect any item as far as Im concerned and the party doing the packaging/shipping must take into consideration that there might be some rough handling on the part of the carrier.
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Yeah that was expensive :D

I believe the packaging was foam poured packaging which was made to be reusable. I sold the Acoustats for $2500 the bidding of which was fierce in the end. I did make money on them even with the shipping cost.

I never throw out electronic shipping boxes. I had my Yamaha CT7000 Tuner shipping box for 30yrs. When I sold the Tuner I simply had the original box double packed. My CT7000 was in the rare Black and sold new $1250 in 1977 so rare was it that when I bought it there was only one left in the country.

I think the moral I learned from all this is when you find a good shipper, listen to them and stick with them as they do it every day! :yes:

SET12
 
SET12 said:
Thanks Guy's for all the posting of all this stuff! :sigh:

I will never even bother to use one of these commercial shipping stores.

I guess I was lucky finding a local independent packaging store that has been in business for 30 yrs and understood the fragile electronics and electrostatic speakers I was shipping

I had a pair of Acoustat Monitor X's with 100 watt Tube Mono blocks along with an extra pair of mono's to ship across country and luckily everything arived perfect with my buyer telling me the packaging was impressive and could be reused. That cost was $600 and was split between the buyer and myself.

The buyer thought I could just package it myself! But I insisted on my shipper who was an expert at shipping worldwide and man was it worth it!

But whoa!!! have I learned a lesson here!


SET12
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Yeah I have the same type of store here! It's the only one I've ever used and thought they were all that good. Obviously WRONG!
 
ups packing is a joke. :D
every time i use them, the item is damaged!! and fighting them for insurence is more of a pain then its worse. so these days, i pack everything myself!
 
i have not had any problems with ups.. however... i see fedex trucks going down the street they drive quick as hell and the trucks shake like if they had square wheels..

i will definetly never have fedex ship anything sensitive for me.. such as hardrives or turntable parts.
 
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