footswitch source for super reverb?

[212Mavguy]

I just had an unfortunate experience with a MIM footswitch, 2 button for the reverb and tremolo. RCA jacks. I paid 50 bucks plus shipping from an eBay seller and the POS failed to work properly, one of the switches was defective, the housing had rust on the inside, the soldering of the braid to the jack on the reverb side was done in a sloppy manner prone to fail, the label was crooked, as if overall what did they do right? This product is a true insult to the Fender name. Does anyone else make a switch that has pride in workmanship and materials used?

[Gibsonman63]

I ordered a couple from Antique Electronics that were fine, but they are chrome, not painted. I have the original footswitch with my 1965 Vibrolux. I had to repair the braid a couple of times on the RCA jack until I got it clean enough to make a decent solder connection.

The last guitar show I went to a few years back had a few vintage ones available, but I thought $100 was just too pricey. Now I am thinking for the right vintage amp, it might be worth it. Of course, I am sure that they are just beyond what I would consider reasonable now.

[Firestorm]

Doug Hoffman used to have black ones, but I see his are chrome now, too. You might be better off fixing yours. AES has the switches. Fender sometimes put the labels on crooked themselves.

[212Mavguy]

Thanks, very much for the info. I'm returning to the seller on principle. I also had the thought of subbing in decent switch parts, but have drawn the firm line in the sand.

I know I'm sounding really snotty, but unapologetically... if someone in the USA sells crap that ought to be made in the USA but outsourced to foreign workers then they ought to have to deal with it.

[Kazooman]

I would probably just build my own. You should be able to get two heavy duty stomp switches, a small enclosure, the cable, and jacks for much less that $50.00.

Added later:

I got curious, so I looked up some parts. I didn't shop around, I just checked out the Small Bear Electronics site where I buy most of the parts for effects pedal builds.

These are HEAVY DUTY parts. The pedal should last a lifetime.

Belden 2 conductor shielded cable - 0.98 per foot.

Carling 110-P SPST footswitch - 7.00

Powder coated size BB box (black) - 9.95

Heavy Duty Switchcraft RCA plug - 2.55.

So, a swicth with 10 feet of cable would run around $39.00.

You can get lighter weight switches for much less and cheapo RCA plugs for pennies. You could also get cable for much less, and a bare aluminum of painted box for less, but the powder coat is well worth it..

[212Mavguy]

Kazooman, thanks for the optimal, ampgarage style no BS solution. Your answer is the best solution, but since I'm not much of a builder yet, I don't have the lists for places to acquire everything on that project's little parts list...yet. Gotta do me some search diggin'.

The reason for my getting the footswitch in the first place is that I came into posession of a blackline silverface SR 4/10 combo. The kid who had it said that it quit while a friend was playing through it suddenly. It was sitting around my house for a year because I was going to fix it up for him. But after a year of sitting in my basement combined with some repeated cash flow situations plaguing him, I offered him what he paid for it, 350 bucks.

Now I didn't need to wait for him to start the project. It had a SS plug in the rec socket, I immediately yanked it, Thought that it might be the suspect, so I started there after I saw the the pre tubes glow on fireup, at the time no rec or power tubes were socketed. Socketed a 5u4 and that had filaments going. Socketed a pair of good Mesa labeled Sovtek 6l6wxt's and they had filaments too... Hookup to an 8 ohm 1/15 Jensen Vibranto filled cab, I knew that a couple of the 10's in the original cab had vC rub issues. Was not sure where the power tubes woud be bias wise, so for quick and dirty sake left in the 5u4 for a bit less less stress to the output section vs Mullard 5ar4 with the mismatched output impedance. Was not worried about excessive 5v filament draw for a few minutes.

Checked the tube chart and a couple of the pre tubes were reversed, 12at vs 12ax position issues. Hooked up the tank, set the trem channel knobs to zero, normal channel 5's on the knobs, plugged in the guitar, hit the standby and Blammo! she fired up and shook the walls! just a bit of hum, reversed the ground switch, all was good. 2 prong plug...

In the 'verb/trem channel everthing also worked and well, but needed a switch to test the trem. Made the opto bug noise, and not as nice sounding as the bias wiggler style in my "vintage cheese" Harmony H306a, opto circuit sounde choppy. So now need to search for opto bug quieting threads here, too. haven' the foggiest about trying to redo to bias type, am gonna have to dig for that too. That mod almost certainly above my pointy little bald head just now. got to read some more O'Connor and Blencowe...

Subbed in a well used RCA labeled Mullard 12ax7 for the bright and microphonic sylvania, bug noise quieted some, but still there. Then got myself in good trouble...

Noticed a very nice SF SR in 9+ condition filled with orange frame JBL d110's, got it for a screaming opening deal after convincing seller to ship, was local PU on the listing, being shipped as we speak. Figgered that a matched quad of those speakers alone was worth minimum 3/4 of the sellers price right there. Sent off gutshots of the one I was working on to a Fender repair guy, He said it was a BF circuit. So now am getting ready to order replacement filter caps (F&T) replace cathode bypass and bias filter caps from my small Black Gate collection. Am planning on reconing the one or two bad CTS 10's in the blackline. Will do full VOS retube from the collection on both, yanking all the JJ's in the SF.

Am guessing that a real footswitch will come with the SF, so I'll have something to use. When I get done with the blackline, am considering blackfacing the SF next...When all is done, will likely sell the blackline.

[212Mavguy]

sorry, double post to thank Kazooman for second effort. HUGE thanks Mr. Mentor!

Then just now had a thought that maybe operator error on this whole footswitch thing, remembering original speaker jack on a SF Champ is RCA that needed full insertion...

Thought until just now the contact was from walls of RCA jack, but after thinking about that Champ went down and did final try...

NOOOO! ME WRONG!!! Operator error!

Dumbass me found out just now after a bit more "Rammit Janet" that after male bottomed out into the female that problem is solved. Contact was at end of socket not inner walls. Sent seller a note of apology and retracted return.

AAAUUUGH!!! I'm SOOO stoopid!

[Kazooman]

It sounds like you got TWO good deals and are well on your way to getting the Super Reverb back into good playing condition.

I have also bought a few "as is", "it just quit playing" amps to play around with. Sometimes you can make a good guess before the purchase. I found a "completely dead" Dual Showman Reverb head for a ridiculously low price on ebay. I suspected a PT problem and checked around and found that it was virtually impossible to find a replacement. That explained why the guy was selling the amp head off so cheap.

I received this incredibly heavy box and found a pristine looking head (it is the red knob version, based on the evil Twin). Sure enough, the primary on the PT was open. I sent it to Heybour here in Michigan and they opened it up. Blown thermal protector. They replaced that and everything checked out to specs. Cost me about sixty bucks including shipping both ways. That amp is a BEAST, even on the LOW setting (just two output tubes running). Everything else works perfectly, including the reverb and a lot of custom controls on the tone circuit.

I get a big grin on my face every time I fire the amp up, knowing what a deal I got.

[Firestorm]

Tell us more about that Super.

[Gibsonman63]

FYI, the reverb should work without the footswitch. The switch turns it off. I have a '72 Super Reverb that I converted to AB763 specs, down to gutting it and rewiring the entire amp with the cloth covered wire. I stripped it down to bare eylette boards and cooked any moisture out with a heat gun, then built it back up. Definitely not a project for the faint of heart, but the results are great.

The conversion to fixed bias voltage adjustment from bias balance is not difficult. The schematics and layouts are readily available. Just study the two, scratch your head for a while and ask questions as needed.

[212Mavguy]

@firestorm, blackline. Silverface is in transit.

@Gibsonman63 Yes, as you wrote. but the trem neeeded a footwitch to activate. Upon cold first fireup it hesitates a second before it starts to go. Pulse initiates at a lower frequency for a few cycles, then goes to the set rate. After switching on and off, the second time switched on it still starts a bit slowly for a couple beats and then hits set rate. The bias trem in my Harmony amps has less lag.

some low quality pics on the blackline,

[Firestorm]

@firestorm, blackline. Silverface is in transit.

@Gibsonman63 Yes, as you wrote. but the trem neeeded a footwitch to activate. Upon cold first fireup it hesitates a second before it starts to go. Pulse initiates at a lower frequency for a few cycles, then goes to the set rate. After switching on and off, the second time switched on it still starts a bit slowly for a couple beats and then hits set rate. The bias trem in my Harmony amps has less lag.

some low quality pics on the blackline,

The trem in bf/sf Fenders depends on how good the trem "bug" is, how good the caps in the phase loop are and strength of the tube. All easy to fix. If you ever need to turn the trem on and don't have a footswitch, you can just take an RCA plug and short it. Trem is turned off by negative voltage and the footswitch just shorts the-V to ground.

[212Mavguy]

Thanks so much! On a scale of 10, my knowledge of guitar amp circuits is 2 on a scale of 10. I can recognize some areas of the circuit for what they do, but the hows and whys of higher learning I'm still gleaning from here my books, and experiences. I know vintage tubes far better than the circuits they are socketed in. When it comes to the input into the amp, I fervently believe that 95% of electric guitar players don't know jack about the back of the jack. I'm one of them...

Am challenged by Fender circuits, What first appears as a plate of spaghetti in complexity initially causes discomfort to just look at, to diagnose, and fix/repair, felt quite intimidated when I opened this one up. I got lucky. The story before I got it was that it quit suddenly while being played very loudly, but when I yanked the SS rec plug initially and put in known good tubes it ran fine. Luuuucky!

As I keep staring, thinking, and reading, things get a bit less scary. I was going to have my tech do the work when the parts arrive. I'm now determined to forge ahead on my own, bit by bit. The amp sounds good right now, I feel that is more due to the skill of the designer, behaves as if pretty fault tolerant.

I'd rather be taught how to fish than be given one. And I'm grateful for every morsel of knowledge that I get to taste here, thanks to all for your kindnesses.

I built my own 4 piece fly rod and tie a lot of my own flies, with the result of catching some 2 pound brookies and 4 pound cutthroats during multi day solos backpacking in the Wind River Range. To take this amp to a spectacular sound is the same. The journey to get to where I can get to the place to catch those fish took tons of research, the building of the rod was done with top end parts, as is the feathers used to do uip those flies, and the techniques used to catch those fish came from experiences. The cost of a single bad decision can be death in both cases.

The guy selling me the parts is a F-specialist with far more experience than myself, kinda like most guys here. I plan on keeping that chassis out of the cab for quite some time. I bought the silverface for the comparatively rare set of four speakers it had in it, price being well below market value and the overall pristine condition. The blackline is my learner amp.

I wish I had a set of flash cards to better learn how to read resistor color codes. Guess I better go to the local school supply and get the marker pens and card stock!

[Firestorm]

Fish will not electrocute you if handle them wrong (most fish, anyway). Make damn sure you know how to discharge an amp before you go "fishing" around inside one.

[212Mavguy]

Absolutely! been there, done that, got the t-shirt.

I know how to discharge caps, have for a few years. Cut my teeth on a Fender Silverface Champ. Almost no original parts remain, including the iron and tube sockets. Thanks for the caution.