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Old 28th Jul 2017, 2:38 pm   #1
Techman
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Default What's in your loft - in boxes or otherwise?

I'll start this thread off as in response to a couple of posts made in both the wanted and for sale sections of this forum, a request for, and an offer for sale of, a two pin with side contact earth kettle/iron type plug. So to save posting more pictures and cluttering up these threads, I've just been up in the loft to have a look for my examples of a couple of irons and a plug that I knew I'd got, to photograph for comparison and start a separate thread. The the sun had gone in and it was a bit cooler up there and I've had a look and eventually found the two vintage clothes irons that I'd mentioned in one of the 'wanted' threads. The items I have are not for sale, the photos of the irons and plug are just for comparison and I'll probably link from the two threads to this one.

The box that I eventually found them in had some other items in including a couple of vintage hair dryers and a couple of electric alarm clocks, plus two later, but still vintage Morphy Richards irons. I really ought to try to clean those very old irons up and put them on display, possibly meter them out and give them some mains!

So what have others got stashed in their lofts (if they dare show), I've certainly got a whole lot more, but I don't know if I dare show some of it - I'm talking about vintage technology only, of course.

Pictures of 'in the box' as the items were removed to get to the two very old irons that were right at the bottom - below:-
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Old 28th Jul 2017, 2:55 pm   #2
peter_scott
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Default Re: What's in your loft - in boxes or otherwise?

2 x DAC90, 2 x 1920s home built radios, Philco Peoples cabinet, Hunts Cap Tester, Philips 170A, Philips 1400A Chassis + CRT + Optics, Homebrew Frequency Convertor Ch3 to Ch1, Homebrew Cross Hatch Gen. HP9100A, Cossor 339, Emiscope 3/16.

Peter
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Old 28th Jul 2017, 3:45 pm   #3
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Default Re: What's in your loft - in boxes or otherwise?

Loads of stuff like radio's to be repaired and repaired ones about forty in total Christmas tree/ lights etc , two Ariston music boxes the ones using the large cardboard disks , boxes and boxes of service manuals , ten auto changers ,and other stuff that will come in handy one day! Mick.
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Old 28th Jul 2017, 3:56 pm   #4
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Default Re: What's in your loft - in boxes or otherwise?

Quote:
and other stuff that will come in handy one day!
You can trigger that day, but only by first disposing of it!
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Old 28th Jul 2017, 5:11 pm   #5
Lloyd 1985
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Default Re: What's in your loft - in boxes or otherwise?

We have 2 lofts at this house, and I can safely say there are spiders, spiders, more spiders and yet more spiders in them both! Along with that there are webs, insulation and dust... the main reason being that we can't actually get into either loft, as the hatches are not big enough to get through.

At our old house, I had the loft full of all sorts of stuff! It's all buried in storage at the moment. I should really be rid of it all... I'll never use any of it!

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Old 28th Jul 2017, 5:53 pm   #6
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Default Re: What's in your loft - in boxes or otherwise?

In my loft?

Several Pye PCRs, some R209s, a dozen or so Pye Westminsters [predominantly high-band FM in boot- and dash-mount flavours and crystalled on 2M though there's a low-band-AM one or two there on the old 86.4375MHz motorsport-marshal frequency and a 'long' Wessie (with the valve PA) rocked on 70.26], some Olympics and Europas, a Pye Whitehall, some Pye 'MOULD' base-stations, half a 19-set, a TCS12 receiver and power-supply, loads of valves, a 2.5Kv-at-1-amp power-supply [needs 415V three-phase], bits of various HF linear amps [one using a pair of 6146, another a grounded-grid 805], some Pye A200 transistor linear-amps, a "Barker 88" broadcast-radio....

and a "Jack Knight" straight-cut-gearset Hillman Imp transaxle!
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Old 28th Jul 2017, 6:12 pm   #7
Bill
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Default Re: What's in your loft - in boxes or otherwise?

Quote:
and a "Jack Knight" straight-cut-gearset Hillman Imp transaxle!
'll raise you an Austin A95 rear windscreen and radiator!
If you have a lot of valves in boxes or otherwise (like I have) stored in the loft, does it improve the loft insulation, what with them mostly having a vacuum?
Plus a few radios, Mullard HSVT and cards, a Solartron megascope, BBC 'B' and Cub monitor etc etc. The ceiling hasn't fallen in... yet.
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Old 28th Jul 2017, 6:12 pm   #8
ionburn
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Default Re: What's in your loft - in boxes or otherwise?

Mostly the kids stuff now (except for my old school reports LOL).

I was always finding that I needed things when they were in the loft, so now have moved things back down.

Also not forgetting my various aerials erected in the loft and wired down through the ceiling. I would keep things up there to a minimum anyway so as to reduce possible signal disruption.
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Old 28th Jul 2017, 6:16 pm   #9
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Default Re: What's in your loft - in boxes or otherwise?

There's a humungeous amount of family stuff in the loft from 40 odd years of tending not to chuck anything away - - - it'll probably come in - eh ?

It's not my decision anyway it would the Managing Directors or other member of the board - I'm only the Tea Boy.

There is a corner of the loft which is devoted solely to me though and it's there I keep what I call my overspill radio's - - - my best-est one's are downstairs rotating around the house - the good overspill ones are packed individually the spares/repairs together.

In the loft there's probably somewhere around three dozen and growing although I try (honest !) to be disciplined - mostly Hackers, Grundigs and a couple of Roberts.

I shall have to apply to the MD for some extra space soon but that may mean taking space allocated to other family stuff - as the song said "there maybe trouble ahead".

So that's what's in my (Ooop's) our loft - suggestions from others who have been in the same situation for the coming negotiations gratefully accepted.
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Old 28th Jul 2017, 7:36 pm   #10
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Default Re: What's in your loft - in boxes or otherwise?

My workshop.....! Banished there about 10 years ago when the wife demanded her dining room back.......what a liberty eh! I'm restricted on the size of stuff that I collect. There is no way I'm pushing huge great telly's through the hatch....! The advantage is that I can disappear up there for hours playing with telly's or radio's and I can leave everything just where I want it and no-one complains....

The biggest disadvantage is the temperature in the summer (too hot...at least on sunny days) but I have an air conditioner on the way and in the winter, far too cold although I do have quite a nice heater up there now.
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Old 28th Jul 2017, 7:53 pm   #11
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Smile Re: What's in your loft - in boxes or otherwise?

The loft in this 3-storey house (dates from circa 1913) is my workshop and storeroom. (A few members here have visited me and seen it). Above that w/shop is the attic: floored and with shelving; access via a ladder and the usual hinged trap-door. Although that attic is rather small, there is the usual assortment of 'domestic stuff' therein: Christmas decorations; financial archives; old carpets & rugs; cardboard boxes for the two flat screen L.E.D. TVs in use here, etc., etc. Oh yes, and a few bits of assorted electronic / electrical 'junk' - stuff you just know that if you do part company with it, soon after, you'll wish you hadn't!

Al.
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Old 28th Jul 2017, 7:55 pm   #12
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Default Re: What's in your loft - in boxes or otherwise?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sideband View Post
The biggest disadvantage is the temperature in the summer (too hot...at least on sunny days) but I have an air conditioner on the way and in the winter, far too cold although I do have quite a nice heater up there now.
Lofts/Attics are indeed subject to some really-crazy temperature and humidity-swings - if you're storing 'stuff' in such places you need to take proper precautions and "tropicalise" everything!

Winter frost on the roof outside? Moisture from cooking/breathing that's risen up through the house to occupy the attic-space condenses on the undersides of the roof-slates and the moment you cause any air-disturbance [like opening the hatch] it rains!

Full summer sun outside, on dark-coloured slates, and the heat radiates from their undersides giving an attic air-temperature of 60+ Centigrade!
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Old 28th Jul 2017, 7:59 pm   #13
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Default Re: What's in your loft - in boxes or otherwise?

I have not so far used my loft for radios, I just don't fancy carrying stuff up and down a ladder.
Though saying that the loft is full of other stuff that I have just not wanted to throw out.
Mike
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Old 28th Jul 2017, 8:08 pm   #14
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Default Re: What's in your loft - in boxes or otherwise?

As we had a new roof last year, our loft is actually quite clean now! I did have a clear-out in preparation, but still have assorted signal generators, an oscilloscope, a decade resistance box, thousands and thousands of assorted resistors, capacitors and 1 1/4" glass fuses (all ex-Marconi when the site closed), assorted 1970's-vintage transistors, Eddystone boxes, heat sinks, Veroboard, 2 car radios ( ex-Plessey), a pre-war Gamages infra-red heater (10" reflector with ES-base heating element), 7 assorted post-war electric kettles, computer listing paper, Bakelite-cased post-war Pifco radio, a vacuum cleaner, my wife's 1970's autochanger music centre, kid's old toys, a 1990's 26" Ferguson CRT TV, a tea chest that still contains the circa 1938 switches, sockets and TRS cables (still in excellent condition) that I removed when I rewired our house, the negatives of the photos I took in the 1960-1980 period, etc. etc. The heavy stuff is located directly over the load-bearing central wall or on shelves attached to the brick party wall.

I have a block and tackle that gives a 3:1 mechanical advantage for getting heavy stuff up and down: fortunately a suitable joist is situated directly over the hatch.
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Old 28th Jul 2017, 8:11 pm   #15
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Default Re: What's in your loft - in boxes or otherwise?

My loft contains my radio/clock workshop for smaller projects and any woodwork or mechanics etc I do in the shed workshop which is a recent addition. The items within the loft are impossible to list in full but they include 4 reel to reel players, 3 turntables, 4 radios(at the moment), a black and white TV, various games consoles/computers and miscellaneous other vintage bits and bobs of non electrical variety. Some of it is stuff that could be useful one day too but that stuff is mostly in the storage shed(a different shed to the workshop). I really need to have a clear out!
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Old 28th Jul 2017, 8:15 pm   #16
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Default Re: What's in your loft - in boxes or otherwise?

The only things in my loft are the (in-use) TV aerial and the water tanks. I am no good on ladders, not even the little ladder up to the loft, so there's no sensible way to get things up there or down again.

On the other hand the rest of my house is like the lofts described here. Fortunately (?) I am not married.
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Old 28th Jul 2017, 9:24 pm   #17
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Default Re: What's in your loft - in boxes or otherwise?

I can say there are no boxes of stuff in my loft. We had a conversion done about twenty odd years ago so there is very little loft in the normal sense of the word. The upstairs ceilings are pretty much up to the apex. There is just enough room for the water tanks etc but not much else. This is probably a good thing. No struggling with heavy/large items up a wobbly ladder then through a small hatch. I have to store all my gear in my outdoor workshop, which is reasonably sized, but unfortunately is kinda packed with so much stuff that I have just enough room to work and keep my motorbikes in. I need more sheds.
Alan.
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Old 29th Jul 2017, 3:52 am   #18
Terry_VK5TM
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Default Re: What's in your loft - in boxes or otherwise?

Unfortunately, a loft is one thing I don't have (there is a 4" gap between ceiling and roof, all filled with insulation).

I do have 3 sheds, most of which hardly have any room to move at the moment.

Terry
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Old 29th Jul 2017, 5:07 am   #19
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Default Re: What's in your loft - in boxes or otherwise?

I think this thread is going to run and run, thank goodness for lofts, a very important aspect of the survival of old stuff. Just think how many radios "packed up" and the owners put them in the loft to get fixed later and then got forgotten about.
My loft is full of old stuff, boxes of 78 rpm records, glass light shades, rescued stained glass windows, record players, of course Radios. Pre war carpets (rugs.)
A 1950's bluecross pram, cine projectors, old comics and boxes of things I've forgotten what's in, the list goes on.
I'm looking forward to my retirement when I hopefully have the time to sort it all out.
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Old 29th Jul 2017, 6:00 am   #20
John M0GLN
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Default Re: What's in your loft - in boxes or otherwise?

Amongst many other items I have are 4 - off RG3-1250 mercury vapour rectifiers, might come in handy if I ever wanted to knock up a 8000V 5A power supply.

John
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