[Joseph Meditz]

I have the chassis for my project almost completley drilled out and
decided to try fitting the EL34 into the octal socket to see how it
looks. To my surprise the tube would not go in the socket! (The
socket is said to be of good quality.) Then I tried plugging in a 6V6
I had, and it went in OK. I then measured the diameter of the pins and
the 6V6 and EL34 and saw that they were the same. So, I believe that
the source of the problem is that the ends of the pins on the EL34 are
not rolled into a bullet shape as on the 6V6. Instead, they are lopped
off squarely without any taper. I had to stick an awl in the pin
sockets to open them up a bit and play around with this for a while
until I got it to go in. What a hassle!

Joe

[Bob H.]

Joseph Meditz wrote:
I have the chassis for my project almost completley drilled out and
decided to try fitting the EL34 into the octal socket to see how it
looks. To my surprise the tube would not go in the socket! (The
socket is said to be of good quality.) Then I tried plugging in a 6V6
I had, and it went in OK. I then measured the diameter of the pins and
the 6V6 and EL34 and saw that they were the same. So, I believe that
the source of the problem is that the ends of the pins on the EL34 are
not rolled into a bullet shape as on the 6V6. Instead, they are lopped
off squarely without any taper. I had to stick an awl in the pin
sockets to open them up a bit and play around with this for a while
until I got it to go in. What a hassle!

Joe

Just knock them in with a ballpeen hammer : )

Bob H.