Repairs at Crasno

Since I operate out of my home, all jobs need an appointment; please contact me!

I offer two tiers of service that differ only in speed: standard and rush. Standard jobs are booked well in advance — typically 4 to 5 months — but turnaround is usually quick once I take in your job, since I try to finish everything before the next month's intake. Rush jobs are taken in and finished as quickly as I can (without compromising quality), and are thus more expensive. When contacting me, please let me know your choice of tier. My rates and policies are as follows:

• Please inform me if you want an estimate. By default, I proceed with a repair without giving an estimate unless it requires expensive parts (>$60.00) or substantial anticipated labor (>3 hours / $240.00).
• Payment is required before I will release your item. I accept cash, Interac E-transfer, and PayPal (with 5% added to compensate for fees). Cheques are accepted only from businesses and institutions.
• Items not paid for and picked up within 60 days of completion (and after repeated contact attempts and reminders) will be sold or kept for my own use.
• I normally do not respond to calls or emails on weekends, which I reserve for resting, having fun, and working on my own projects. However, if drop-off or pickup is truly impossible during the week, a weekend could be arranged.
• My warranty begins at the date of completion, and ends 365 days later. Only the work that I perform is warranted; faults other than those that I fixed are not covered, nor are any faults resulting from misuse or abuse. Up to $50.00 of parts are covered by me; above that, the warranty is whatever the supplier from which I received the part provides.

Though I prefer face-to-face exchange of items and payment, I can also repair things shipped to me, so long as you pay for all shipping costs and accept the inherent risks of shipment.

What sorts of things do I repair?

All of the above, and more! These are all things that I have repaired and photographed. Here is what I generally do and do not accept:

Please note that I receive so many inquiries that I might not respond to those asking me to repair things listed in the right-hand column above. If you have something not listed in either column, feel free to ask me about it!

In general, the older the better; devices made prior to the 1980s especially exhibit high repairability (including availability of parts and documentation) as compared to modern products, because they were designed to be serviced at the component level using parts that are at human scale, and either fundamental and thus common, or simple enough to easily rebuild or substitute. This is especially true of equipment made during the vacuum-tube era — the 1920s to early '60s — with the shift towards assembly-level repair and disposability occurring mainly between the 1960s and the 2000s along with the rise of such things as proprietary integrated circuits (which cannot be sourced, nor practically substituted or rebuilt), digital techniques (allowing designs to become too complex and interdependent to be economically repaired at the component level), and robotic assembly (allowing the use of parts too small and finicky for humans to practically work with). Except for the few modern products that are built to old standards, I take in very few things made after 1990. Most modern things are not made to be repaired, and were cheap to start with, so they are not worth repairing unless the fault is obvious and the solution simple. I don't want to waste your money, nor my own time, so please understand if I refuse to take in a particular device because it is too modern.

Also note that I will not perform a "guitar amp conversion" on any movie projectors or vacuum-tube organs. They are far more interesting and valuable as they are. The world has plenty of fine guitar amps, and they are easy to build, while the supply of quality projectors and organs continues to diminish, and they are not nearly as easy to build.

• Electronic kit assembly, especially of synthesizers and tube amplifiers.