Posted by bill epstein [ 65.189.211.118 ] on October 15, 2006 at 07:00:55:
I got to watch Steve at his la-bor-a-tory bench for a 6 hour long session yesterday. The same amount of work could have been done in half the time but he insisted on having me do some of the wiring. I'm so slow he commented that 'now he understands why Bottlehead kit-builders say it took them 12 hours to build the Foreplay'. He did it in an an hour! Me? I spent 2 weeks on that first kit working a couple of hours a night.
When the 'Simple 45' project began we intended to each build one, sde-by-side, but other obligations kept him from acquiring the parts. Instead, he generously helped me with parts selection and offered his time to my end of the project.
Steve started building electronics, like so many of today's expert hobbyists when he was a teenager, with Heathkits. Soon, he was repairing the neighbors TV's. Remind you of anyone?
Having built a total of nine kits, now, If I have detailed "place tab A in slot B" instructions, the end result will be a decent looking, working piece. These experiences have given me a third-grade understanding of the circuits but the ability to wire from a schematic still eludes. When our first session together began, that was what I was expecting Steve to do. Surprisingly, he never referred to the schematic at all, just began wiring up the power supply. His familiarity with circuitry is mind-boggling!
Missing parts? He goes into the resistor drawer and cobbles together a series that yields the correct value. Are the output transformer taps hidden from view? Get out the flashlight and peer through an RCA jack hole. Nothing breaks his calm patience. Not even my sometimes comical efforts at wiring some of the easy parts. Then he intuitively sees that the design is under-rated somewhere and does the Ohms Law math in his head, substituting a value that satisfies him. The H-P calculator is only used to verify that he's right. He is.
Finally, the work is done. With an obvious delight, un-jaded by having done this countless times before, he goes about powering up the device with the Variac and measuring the output on the oscilloscope. Some problems crop up and a few changes are needed to get the desired result. It appears as though, having worked right through lunch, that the amp won't be working today. Steve just begins talking about how we can get together again to finish.
It's now past 5 o'clock, I can see he's tired, and I begin the hour-long drive back home. I feed the cat, pour a drink and switch on the computer. There's an e-mail from Steve announcing that he's got the amp working and describing how it sounds. No quit in the man!
Why am I not surprised?
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