Vintage tube amp resurrection with Variac?

If using a variac on a unit with the tubes installed care needs to be taken if the item is tube rectified.

If it has a slow start rectifier installed it will NOT see a slow ramp up from the variac, but will eventually quickly see higher voltage, which is not good for reforming caps.

There are some quick start subs for a GZ34 (think I once used a 5Y3, but not certain as it's been awhile).

A local tech once used a SS (plug in) rectifier on one of my vintage amps with a GZ34 (he made made it in a manner of minutes), but I've seen them for sale online as well.

With tube rectifier things get simpler because tube rectifiers reach operational voltage slow enough to catch problem with or even without variac.
With variac set to operational voltage and voltmeters attached to the bias pots or resistors and one attached to the rectifier output you can monitor gradual voltage increase. Once bias on any of the bias pots goes beyond tolerant, you can bring back variac to the noted voltage or below or turn amp off and inspect circuit elements around the fault bias pot or resistor.

Czarivey:

Your advice does nor gell with the tech that worked on my Pilot 232, nor the advice I received from the AA forums.

Basically I was told that a GZ34 will not start to pass current until it reaches 80-90 VAC (which is 4-5 times higher than one wants to start when reforming lytics).

Dekay I mentioned earlier replacing all DC supply caps before even getting onto the variac.

Czarivey:

Also forgot to mention that if using a 5Y3 (in place of a GZ34) it needs to be replaced with the proper tube once you get up to higher voltages (very important point left out).

Sorry, didn't notice the DC cap info.

I once used the light bulb method (think it was on a Pilot 240) and it worked well.