is there a way to tighten pins in tube sockets?

Yes. If you look at the sockets you'll see copper wires in socket grooves, bent over towards the outside of the socket. You can insert something behind this wire, between it and the socket wall, and bend it forward. It won't take much, just a tad. I use a small flat blade screwdriver (very small, like one for eyeglasses). BE SURE TO TURN OFF THEN UNPLUG THE AMP FIRST!!!!! :-)

FWIW.

Beyond unplugging the amp: be certain the power supply capacitors are FULLY DISCHARGED. Many components have bleed resistors, that will discharge them, after the unit is turned off(takes a little while). The caps can still somewhat recharge themselves, do to Dielectric Absorption. Whether your unit has bleed resistors or not: it would be best to leave the amp off/unplugged for a couple hours, then touch a short wire(insulated from you) or screwdriver across every capacitor's terminals, to insure that they are not retaining a charge.

"Thee shower?" Actually; the King James method is during a baptism(full immersion & considerably more involved).

Two of the output tube sockets of my VAC amp don't grip the tube pins tight.

The problem I experience from this is a right channel hum and unstable tube bias.

Do the power tubes plug in and pull out of the tube sockets fairly easy?
If so that would indicate poor contact pressure.

Yes you can tighten the tube socket contacts as others have described above. Problem is will the contact pressure against the tube pins stay tight.

Heat on the socket contacts produced by the power tubes + even more heat produced by poor contact pressure between the tube pins and tube socket contacts more than likely has caused the tube socket contacts to loose their tension memory. If that is the case even if you tighten the contacts they will not hold their form, pressure, against the pins of the tube.

Best to have the sockets replaced.
.

The hum and unstable bias just might be due to poor contacts on the pins. Bend them a little if you can, then get some contact cleaner and clean the pins and sockets. Put the tubes back in and you may not need to send these to VAC???

Get some socket savers. They come in 8 or 9 pin. Before you put them in just squeeze the female pins a tad and then stick the socket saver in so it fits tight. Now you will always replace your tubes in the socket saver not the sockets on your amp. I use them on my amps and they solve the problem.

I forgot to mention. They will raise your tubes about an inch taller so if you have a cover over tubes make sure they will clear if no cover no problem.

+1 for the socket savers ONCE the pins are tightened. I got the ones from the tubemonger and I will say the sockets on the saver are real tight. I had a loose socket where the bias would drift and lost some pretty expensive tubes as a result before figuring that out. For me I had the sockets replaced first.

I was thinking there might be a "special tool" for performing the tighten operation. Since I work on BMW's, they have a "special tool" for everything. I'll take a look at the amp this weekend and see what's possible.

Mission accomplished. I used a jewelers screwdriver. Once the amp was out of the rack and on the dining room table it was easy to see the pin receptors, two curved and one flat in each hole. The amount of adjustment was slight to achieve a solid fit.

Consider the socket savers now.

Viridian,

Thanks for the link.

-Sam