"Hi there. Don't you just love it when a good plan comes together!!
This Watkins (WEM) 70's Vari-Speed Copicat was the reward of a sniping on E-Bay at the
"Asda Price" of £45 as a non-working unit, i.e. the motor was not
turning. It was snaffled for a long standing dear friend of mine called Mervin,
who lives in Australia and whom I have known for over 40 years.
After receiving the unit, and on first examination and test, it was blatantly obvious that the negative part of the power supply had for some reason gone
down. This turned out to be simply the main bridge rectifier. (middle of the
photo below). After the replacement of a much bigger current one (easily available nowadays), at a cost of less than 50 pence, she burst
"back into life"! A further clean, polish, and de-gauss of all the tape heads saw a vast improvement.
I sent this over to Mervin in Australia as a surprise for him. He was, needless
to say, really pleased.
I love helping my friends like this, and Merv is a "real, true friend"
Cheers, John.
