free el84 retainers

these next few post are some simple tips that i've shared with others on amp forums.

when looking around for an el84 retainer one day, a spring fell out of one of my j-slot preamp tube shields. i got to thinking that maybe this could function as a el84 retainer. i dinked around for a few moments trying to figure out how to mount it, finally coming up with the arrangement below:



i really didn't think this would hold up, but after trying to pull off the spring and lifting the entire amp off the table without the spring coming off, i determined this was actually going to work, after all!

an alternate and likely more stable arrangement would be to bend a small hook in the end of the spring and hook it into the slot next to the retainer pin that it is being supported by in the picture.