Another Snarling Beast

[philmanatee]

Just fired up my Express, it's my first build and it works great! It's very responsive with el34's or 6v6's. I'll try to post pictures this weekend, I think I'll gig with it Saturday night. I'm really impressed with this thing and I want to thank Dana for the nice turret boards, and the advice he gave me. I better go to bed I've been staying up till 2am all week getting this thing put together. Great forum, I couldn't have built this without seeing all the great examples you guys have put together. Also thanks to Nik at Ceriatone for the chassis, and Moose at Toneslut for the trannies! Phil

[UR12]

Ahh the late nighter, don't ya just love those. Congrats on the build Phil!!!

Can't wait to se some pics and hear some clips. Let us know how it goes Saturday Nite.

[Moose]

I've had more than one bleary eyed morning because of soldering until 3AM. Worst part is when you finish and you can't fire it up until the next day without the cops coming!

Let us know how the gig goes. These things really cut through the mix, and take a special touch, but the tone is phenominal.

[philmanatee]

Here's some more shots, I was putting the amp in the cabinet for a shot and the filters released from the chassis and broke the lead off the 40uf closest to the preamp board. If I can get a hold of another 40uf tomorrow I'm going to redo the filter section wit plumbers goop instead of hot melt glue. Phil

[gearhead]

Fantastic looking build.

Rather than plummers goop, have heard others use GE Silione II caulk with good results. You can get at any hardware store; 4.99 for a full caulk tube, and is good to 400 degrees F. It's what I'm using for another build, but haven't fired it up yet.

BTW, what brand/source did you use for the lower voltage electrolytics (10uf/100v and 22uf/25v) and the picofarad (47,100,500) caps?

[philmanatee]

Thanks for the tip. The 25uf@50v's are Spragues I purchased them from Angela Instruments a few years ago. The 10uf@150v's are IEC, the 47pf is SANA, the 100pf says SM and where from a local source Alphatronix. The 500pf is CDE and was from Mouser, all the rest of the Mallory's, the Clarostat pots, wire and impedance selector were from Soldano Amps. Mike really liked Dana's turret boards and Nik's chassis. Phil

[Allynmey]

Phil, that looks great! I put a tip in one of the threads about gluing the caps to the board. Use a Heat gun on low or a Hairdryer on high heat to heat the chassis slightly. Put the hot melt glue on and you have a good abount of time position the caps in the glue tight up against the chassis without it hardening up for a minute or so. I works great! I think alot of used that method.

I can't wait to hear it!

Allynmey

[philmanatee]

I got a 47uf ruby and replaced the broken Mallory so I can take it to the gig tonight. I used the hair dryer to heat everything up first and it worked pretty good . Here are the cabinet shots. Phil

[Allynmey]

Very nice looking Cabinet.

Allynmey

[MooreCowbelle]

...the 100pf says SM and where from a local source Alphatronix.

Gotta love Alphatronix! Were you the guy I tripped over that was sorting through the big box of random cap pulls?

... all the rest of the Mallory's, the Clarostat pots, wire and impedance selector were from Soldano Amps. Mike really liked Dana's turret boards and Nik's chassis. Phil

Uh, Mike Soldano? Really?!?

[MooreCowbelle]

Phil,
Oh, and by the way, nice cabinet! What kind of wood is that? Where did you get it, and how did you do the faceplate? ...and 300 other questions...

[philmanatee]

The wood is, I think eastern red ash, I got a huge plank of it at Crosscut Hardwoods in south Seattle I also got a plank of curly maple the same day. My neighbor has a cabinet shop in his garage and we trade labor back and forth. He also made me a cabinet of the curly maple for my next project(hopefully a Rocket). When he made the cabinets he cut me 2 faceplates of each wood. One of the maple ones was scarred, so i used it to practice and found out that reular, or brad dill bits split the plate so I purchased some cheap forstener bits at Woodcrafters in south Seattle. The forsteners were the ticket, extremely clean holes with very little chipping. I'm getting some custom gig bags made next week, if the price is cheap enough I'll get a few extra and offer them for sale at a reasonable price. Phil