Farfisa Tuning Coils

[theseacowexists]

Is it safe to remove the wax from the outside of the tuning coils in order to do some tuning? They won't turn with the wax on there.

[Drawbar Dave]

Yes it is. Use a proper plastic tool on the tuning slugs though, not a metal screwdriver.

[Jyvoipabo]

https://youtu.be/n6iLOLNSPIc

[theseacowexists]

Melt the wax with a heat gun? That idea did cross my mind, I just didn't want to melt anything that isn't supposed to get melted! I ended up scraping the wax blobs on the outside of the coil with an x-acto knife.

[Jyvoipabo]

More comments :

It is not a question of melting anything but of heating and gently turning the screw to the right then to the left with a screwdriver.
After a while it becomes easy to unscrew it.

Other uses of this little tool :

Heat-shrink sleeve.
Desolderind IC and particulary SMD components (use a chocolate paper screen).
Preheating of the metal frames before tin iron welding.
Elimination of old glue residues....
...on supergluted amphenol connector for example.

JP

[KC9UDX]

Have you done this? I would not recommend it. At first I thought of the one on my UT-1000 soldering iron, and maybe that would work. But I'm not sure I'd even try that, let alone a full size heat gun.

The one thing I find important with tuning slugs is to lubricate them. They tend to be very fragile, and the last thing you want to do is break one.

[Jyvoipabo]

Yes I did it !
I'd fixed quickly without any damage.
But above all, do not use a flame device like the one you mentioned.
I'd also used the hot air gun of a Soldering Station but the proxxon mini gun is cheaper and more efficient.
JP

[theseacowexists]

I considered trying it with the hot air gun attached to my soldering station, but I still didn't feel comfortable doing it. After chipping off the wax on the outside, the slugs turned easily enough. After getting everything in tune, I put a drop of hot glue on each slug to keep it in place. That will come off easily when I need to retune in the future.