Fender Bandmaster 1966 blackface

[selloutrr]

exactly sometimes it's a labor of love and the excitement that a player expresses is the best you get and the satisfaction of a job well done. It won't always pay the bills so i can't suggest making it your full time practice but it's a nice feeling once in a while. I hate adding or removing mods and in many ways discourage them if they have to drill a hole i suggest selling the amp and point them toward an amp that has what they need, or give up a jack that isn't used. so far I haven't had to drill anything of value but i've seen some really nice vintage hiwatt, orange and JTM45 with stupied master volume mods and poorly placed holes... those are sad days like vintage guitars getting sanded down and routed out.... Try this next time you get asked to reverse or add a mod. $60 an hour charged by the minute after the 2nd hour. minimum one hour. plus parts. then ask them to set there cap out $$$ so at 3 hours you stop finished or not. explain it to them first all to often the cost will reach $300+ then make a package discount if you feel back or enjoy doing the work on that amp or for that person. I keep that figure for the pain in my ass customers.

[CaseyJones]

Next time you overhaul an amp as some sort of hobby interest bear in mind that there are people out there who need that work. $60.00 per hour is dirt cheap out here in the sticks, we charge $125.00 an hour and we get it.

$300 is cheap if the amp needs tubes. Tubes, a cap job, replace a cruddy speaker and a bunch of missing hardware... it adds up real quick.

Unless you're gonna use those super-duper Chinese tubes. Oh waidaminnit, those are fifty bucks each!

[CaseyJones]

Here's the way I figure it:

Think about what it costs in your area to have a plumber come over and unclog yer sink drain. Plumbers ain't electronics techs, the basics are "shit flows downhill" keep it tidy and make sure it don't leak. We have a few more things to think about than that...

Look at what it costs to have yer car serviced in your area. You can take it to Joe Schlub for the basics, Joe knows how to change the oil, change tires and maybe install new brake pads. Joe watches NASCAR on weekends so he'll try to R&R your tires as fast as he possibly can. Joe has a nasty habit of bendin' yer spendy alloy wheels on his tire machine. Joe will make sure that you part wif a couple hundred green Yankee dollars on yer way out.

Take it to the dealer, then. Sure their techs are properly trained (one would hope) but you're gonna pay double what Joe charges.

Joe has probably been doin' this since he wuz in high school. Joe will hire a couple greaseball teenagers to handle this and that, the math is pretty simple... $15.00 per hour is a little more then they pay at Pizza Slut so the kids are happy. Joe bills them out at $75.00 per hour so if he has a couple extra bays he's doin' pretty good.

Teenagers have a lot on their minds, it's tough for them to focus on the job at hand. Sure they can play guitar like Steve Vai but when it comes to attention to detail they might not have the attention span for it. You better hope that Joe is lookin' over their shoulders unless you want a familiar lookin' wheel passin' ya out on I-5... "Hey... that looks like my wheel!"

I'll happily work on junk if my customers pay the price of admission. Chargin' enough up front means that Behringers don't even walk in the door. Chargin' enough up front means I don't have to micro-manage my time, if the job is straighforwards albeit time consuming it gets billed out as an hour, period, end of story. On the other hand if you took it to someone else while you were playin' Oklahoma City... and the amp looks like it wuz "serviced" by rodents on drugs... and I know it didn't look like that last time I worked on it... well, do the math. I'll set it straight, charge you for it and send you on yer way.

[Wayne]

Plumbers ain't electronics techs, the basics are "shit flows downhill"

Actually, for plumbers, it's

1. Hot on the left
2. Shit flows downhill
3. Don't put your fingers in your mouth

I usually carry this one step further for us electronic techie types -

1, 2, and 3 - same as above. then, most importantly:

4. If you forget and leave the water on, you could fry!

W

[selloutrr]

must be nice to live in the sticks clean air and pickup trucks. In the big city our local rates average 50-70 so 60 is a nice compromise and the girls have all there teeth! i don't get the bottom scum and i get some of the business that would have gone the otherway while still counting my time in dollars. (dollar a minute) of course it gets expensive i wasn't talking about the addition of parts. Why would you even talk about chinese tubes.... their are a few that i've heard that sounded pretty good but they only lasted for 6 months in a distortion pedal. My client base is more about bugle boy, RCA and westinghouse with a few brimar and telefunken mixed in but they will make due in a pinch with JJ/tesla and Svetlana winged C's.
I looked into stocking groove tubes but they have such a high markup that outside of the business they send my way i can't justify the cost that is tied up in stock when i could buy the same tube for less then half direct from the manufacture.

So let me get this straight you just tried to sell the fact that plumbing and auto technicians make more money so i guess the question now is why are you still working on audio? there are cars to be tinkered on and poop to be rooted.

I'm happy with what i do, again if you need to have your wallet raped in order to feel fixed just let me know!

I'm sorry if your butt hurt but please take a shit and get over it a plumber need's a gig.

shouldn't there be a #4 for the plumber to care about?
SHOWING CRACK he's just not qualified without it

[Structo]

Hey you helped out a friend in need!
His bad for not telling you about the channel that never worked.
But I don't think you are taking the bread out of anybodies mouth, IMO.

[CaseyJones]

must be nice to live in the sticks clean air and pickup trucks. In the big city our local rates average 50-70 so 60 is a nice compromise and the girls have all there teeth! (blah blah blah)

Hey, I've got it! It's time for me to do my Bill Gates thing and give a little back. I'll spend six months in SoCal givin' pro sound seminars. I'll teach every Mexican, teenager, bum or whoever to set up and run P.A. systems. Just because I can and it's the right thing to do.

Although... SoCal drives me nuts, too many hyper privileged / hyper entitled narcissists and nuthin' but fake titties as far as the eye can see. It's no damn wonder they shoot at each other on the freeways out there.

I'll have to give that guy in Long Beach a few pointers on buildin' bikes while I'm out West...

[selloutrr]

hmm fake tits still perky even after all these years!

well on to something more productive then internet chat room bickering! I guess we could texted in all CAPS...

here are a few shots of the fender and the master volume thought you would like to see.