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Jeri Ellsworth has built working transistors at home.

Point contact germanium BJT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmotkjMSKnI

Etched silicon FET: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdcKwOo7dmM

The rusty razorblade + pin point contact diode doesn't need anything special because it's a Schottky diode, with a metal/N-type semiconductor junction. If you probe lots of places you can find an N-type region where the dopant is random impurities. But the transistor needs both N and P-type regions, so I don't see any way to build one with common junk. Jeri's point contact example works by diffusing phosphorus from phosphor bronze into commercially produced N-type germanium using a high current to heat it. Phosphor bronze is arguably household junk but I don't think germanium diodes are.



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