I just got this bad boy:
The backstory (lol, like it really matters
) :
This past April I was visiting my old high school woodshop teacher and showing him some of the stuff I've built since I graduated. We ended up talking about what's been going on in both of our lives since we've seen each other, and I mentioned that I've started working at a company that fixes guitars. He then goes "Oh! wait right here!" and runs into his office to reappear a minute later with an acoustic guitar case. He says his guitar has something wrong with and wants to know if I can fix it. So I tell him I'll take a look at it and let him know. Eight months later, I've cut the neck off his guitar, sanded a tiny bit more of an angle into the heel, resprayed the upper side, glued the neck back in and leveled all the frets and it plays great. I take it back to my shop teacher and he tells me that he doesn't have the money to pay me at the moment. I remembered he had some drill presses in this back closet of the shop that weren't being used, so I offered to trade for a drill press and he agrees. We pull out the best looking one of the bunch and plug it in to see if it works, but it just makes a buzzing noise, like something was caught in the motor. Neither of us could figure out the problem, but I took it home anyway to tinker with it. I started unscrewing anything that could be unscrewed to see what was there. Lo and behold, there's a panel in the back that catches my eye:
I unscrew it and see a huge capacitor that says "Motor-Starting" on it, then I look at the bottom of the capacitor and see that it's leaking oil everywhere. Figuring that this is probably the source of my troubles, I cut the rubber caps off either side so I can read any information on what the values of the capacitor are:
A quick google search sends me to the site of a motor repair store in Santa Fe, CA. They had replacement capacitors in stock, so I order one. Fast-forward to today; I get the capacitor in the mail and excitedly wire it up (a bit sloppily; oh well) :
I go to plug the drill press in to see if it work, but as I reached for the plug the worrisome side of my brain kicks in. I grab some safety glasses in case the capacitor were to explode or something.
I plug it in and the drill press roars to life! Success!!
Anyhow, long story short: I'm one machine closer to being able to build guitars in my garage!