Just a very quick update.

I found a lovely crystal radio kit on Ebay that needed some attention. Some bits were missing and the connection springs were all corroded. The good news with this kit was that the main components seemed fine and the corrosion hadn’t yet spread to the component leads. It also came with it’s original manual and box.

Above you can see the main panel after having most of it’s springs replaced.

And above is a picture of the old, corroded springs alongside a nice new shiny new one on the right. The replacements are slightly longer, but the same diameter so fit great.

You can get replacement springs from here: RadioShack® Science Fair-Style Spring Terminals – Maker Trading Post and they took around 10 days to arrive to the UK. I did find other resellers including one in the UK, but they were expensive and I wanted a lot. I ended up purchasing a bag of 200 which is the most that can be shipped without incurring additional postage costs, or attracting the attention of UK customs.

There’s a trick I’ve found to removing the old springs. Remove the component lead from the underside and then “screw” the springs in an clockwise direction whilst pulling gently. I know it’s counter intuitive and we teach our children “righty tightly – lefty loosey”, but in this case the opposite is true. If you pull “gently” on the springs as you are rotating them clockwise, they will unthread themselves and pop out. You then rotate the replacement springs anti-clockwise whilst pushing gently for them to screw back into place.

If you simply grab and pull, you will damage the hole and it won’t hold the replacement spring, especially if the base plate is cardboard.

I’ll post another picture once it’s all assembled.