Good Start Thomas. I will note here that from 58' on FISHER tended to use Foreign (usually German) brand Mylar, and other FILM Caps. Namely ERO-Foils, FRAKO, Ducati, and a couple other brands I can't remember off the top of my head. Each and every one of these should go as they have gone thru molecular changes that allows moisture in that messes with them and causes values to go off, shorts, and or opens.
BROWN epoxy filled caps, are known as Dog Turds. These are garbage and must be replaced for the same reasons.
Getting into kits'. It's supply and demand. The 400's, 500's(B&C), and 800(B&C) are the most prolific and popular models that FISHER Built. They are fairly easy to work on, (compared to some of their contemporaries), and are plentiful in that spare parts from Donors are available from E-prey without too much fuss. As you go back in time, before the pre-B models, actual number of units available drops, information on them becomes scarce, as does spare parts, so the above becomes a factor with regard to re-building kits. The units aren't plentiful, not much call for them, not too many have done rebuilds and documented them with parts lists (which incidentally is how many if not most of the kits came about), and so no one has a kit for most of them. 1/2 the fun of this hobby is figuring out what's inside and then corellating that to modern parts.
Not all 600's are the same. Some will be 99% accurate to the manual. These will be the early units that were made right about the time of the manual. The rest will have some modifications to them that don't get to the manual, either from the manufacturing line, post production update lines, Shop service depts, and finally a 'tech' or owner that did mods and didn't document the mod(s). The best way to rectify this is to get the manual/ and the sams (not always do they match!!!), and compare the manual with the actual unit. Document any discrepancies in favor of the unit itself. NOTE on the front of your copy that the manual reflects SERIAL NUMBER XXXXXXXX at the following date. If/When you sell the unit, the manual goes too.
Once you get everyone on the same sheet of music, then you make your order. Don't limit yourself to one particular brand of cap. Mix them up if/when possible. This prevents a coloring of the sound from a particular brand of cap. But don't go hog wild on Auricaps, Jensens, or any of the "Boutique" caps. Orange Drops, DME's, Mallory, Illinois Caps, Sprague(within reason due to sizes some of these get) are all good proven caps, plentiful supplies, at reasonable prices that have passed the test of time. These will give you a good baseline to work from. Russian PIO's are fairly cheap (compared to Auricaps, Solens) and sound pretty good in coupling cap instances.
This wil give you a working start. The rest is up to you. Ask questions if/when you get stuck. Don't worry about sounding less than intelligent with regards to circuits etc. We've all been there at one time or another, and some of us come back for repeat performances.
Larry
