Good news = I got a 71 Bandmaster for $40! (Clips added)

[dynaman]

That's actually not such a bad idea. Any decent regulated wall wart can supply you with cheap but pretty clean power, perfect for heaters and such. The good ones are meant to be able to operate at elevated temperatures without a significant voltage drop and the entire thing is encased in plastic so you have no worries about shorts ever..

Yeah, after looking into making some boards for DC supplies, I'll admit to entertaining the thought of dropping in a cheap and compact wall wart to save the aggravation.

[Cliff Schecht]

That was kinda my thoughts. I agree that it does look goofy but the idea has its merits. Anybody who has ever tried and failed with DC heaters should get this .

[C Moore]

The wall wart does not look "hack" at all. The guy did a nice job of installing it.....

[passfan]

Well right after I posted, I thought it seemed almost genius but I still wouldn't do it to an amp I was modding for or building for a customer as a finished product.

[Noel Grassy]

It seems that Lee and Dan may have gone to the same amp repair schools.
But there's a certain level of hack they can only aspire to. That would be
Zinky's:

[dynaman]

OMG, that's just atrocious. And what's with frosting everything in sight? Switches? Fuse holders? Must be some new dampening effect.....

[Structo]

Now that is a well dampened amp!
Is that hot glue or silicone caulk?

Looks like silicone to me, and a lot of it too!

[rp]

Yeah, after looking into making some boards for DC supplies, I'll admit to entertaining the thought of dropping in a cheap and compact wall wart to save the aggravation.

FYI Dynaman

http://www.welbornelabs.com/ps6.htm
http://www.welbornelabs.com/lowvolt.htm

I've dealt w/ Welborne a couple times over 20 years every time ok and fast ship. But I've read some negative posts about bad service, so this is not an unqualified endorsement. These boards are what I would try if I wanted DC filaments.

Wow, I've seen some heinous things today on this post, from big names too. What would make Zinky go totally apeshit with a whole tube of silicon! It boggles the mind. 50 years of Marshall, Hiwatt Fenders, hyped up, drunk, stoned rockers, Townsend, Hendrix, Kossoff, Punks, Metal, world tours, stadiums, thousands of dbs, bad roads, ocean freight, and all those countless road weary 50 year old amps still going strong and never a drop of hot glue or silicon to keep it together. Overwhelming proof you can do fine without gobs of muck, to me anyway.

I feel bad for the bit of butchery I did in the past but I was clean!

Skip Henderson used to refer to this sort of work as Reptile Dentistry. That would be a good name for a site dedicated to amp abominations. Or an archive here.

That said, cutting the prongs off a wall wart is genius!

-rp

[alanp]

Looking at some of these, I'm surprised that no one has just potted the entire chassis in black epoxy like an ARP 2600 submodule.

[Structo]

Yeah, look at the 1 Spot pedal power supply.
That thing is tiny yet can supply 1700ma.
Not bad for $20.

[infiniteposse]

So my Allen transformer showed up today and I had a few minutes to get it installed in the BMR. I brought the amp up slowly on the variac without power tubes, checked out voltages and stability and everything seemed fine. Did the same again with some old 6L6's and all went well so I start to check it out. It biases a little hot (41+ per 6L6), but seems to be running well. I've been burning it in a while now and it's remarkably quiet for the density of the wiring.

Overall, I was really surprised with the sound. Right off the bat it sounds much more decent than I anticipated and much better than the one mooded Concert II demo I found. The Normal channel is stock fender or pretty close I'd guess as it sounds like a simple Fender tone stack to my ears. The Vibrato channel has several ways to cascade gain, so while you can get sort of heavy with it, you can also pull back and get nice crunch that's pretty useful.

I decided to come home and do a little demo clip to show what this thing sounds like in the real world. The playing sucks, but I'm not the man for fancy demo's. I describe settings as I go. Slight compression on the amp. 2 mics - R84 and MD421. 73 LP Deluxe with minis.

http://mysterymachinestudio.bandcamp.co ... everb-demo

Next step with the amp is cleaning up the couple of old caps that are in the interior and perhaps cleaning up any questionable solder joints, etc... Otherwise I'm going to let my boss check it out for overall stability and to see if he can better understand why the tranny might have gone out, ie: did the circuit do it or was it just a fluke thing. I'll play it for a while and see if it's something that'll realistically get used or not.

Any suggestions for determining if this amp can survive wired as is? Specific voltages to look for that might be of concern, etc? While I'm solid with a soldering iron and wiring, the actual magic of good diagnostics is new to me, so if anyone has suggestions of specific things to check out, I'd love to hear suggestions.

Thanks for all the help guys.

Edited to add: I'd missed the ongoing hacky discussion. Whoa. Maybe my amp doesn't look so bad after all:)

[Bob-I]

Any suggestions for determining if this amp can survive wired as is? Specific voltages to look for that might be of concern, etc?

The question is do you like the way it sounds? To my ears the clean side sounds ok, nothing exciting, but the gain side is pretty ratty sounding, and not in a good way, again to my ears.

Check all the plate and cathode voltages to see if they're in a decent range, otherwise there's really no reason it can't survive.

Personally I'd gut it and either restore it to original or build something useful in it. My old Bassman is now a new amp based on a Trainwreck Rocket preamp with EL-34 outputs and reverb.

JMO

[Cliff Schecht]

The amp NEEDS a recap and probably at least a partial retube as well before I would expect a decent sound out of it. I'm surprised the amp doesn't oscillate badly. TBH I won't turn anything on if I see a paper electrolytic, those should always be assumed to be bad and need to be replaced (they don't last).

[KellyBass]

Skip Henderson used to refer to this sort of work as Reptile Dentistry. That would be a good name for a site dedicated to amp abominations.

-rp

Wow! I haven't heard that name in a while! Skip was great..What's he doing these days?

I used to dumpster dive behind drug stores for him. I would dig out the out-of date vitamins they were throwing away, send them to Skip and he would distribute them to poverty stricken school kids in the south. part of his Mt. Zion project, I believe. Good times....!

Anyway, I remember the "reptile dentistry" reference in many of his ads. I used to love reading his "city lights fanzine" thing.

[rdjones]

Any suggestions for determining if this amp can survive wired as is? Specific voltages to look for that might be of concern, etc? While I'm solid with a soldering iron and wiring, the actual magic of good diagnostics is new to me, so if anyone has suggestions of specific things to check out, I'd love to hear suggestions.

Lately I've been more watchful of screen grids.
Like checking voltage, current whenever possible, and values of screen resistors. Fender's not shy about running tubes hard even on a 40 watt amp. (This is not an ultralinear is it?)
With ever increasing line voltages it's possible to get up into territory that even some of the more stout tubes may not like. Also watch the screens if you can under heavy signal and see how bright they are getting. If they're glowing much you might consider larger screen resistors, or moving the screen supply down a node on the rail.

rd