Who are we? Let's get to know each other!

[jimipage]

my name is Gavin. I've been playing guitar most of my life. Before dropping out of college(life happens), I was pursuing a degree in Jazz Arranging. I did work as an arranger/composer for an avant-garde-ish big band in Sacramento for several years. My playing experience is in hard rock, blues, and, of course, jazz.
About two and a half years ago my wife and I sold our house and quit our professions(she an architect for ten years; myself a bartender for 15 years) and go live our life way out in the countryside. Getting away from city life helped us both re-focus and each decide what to do with ourselves. I've always been fascinated with tube amplification, so I decided to pursue ampbuilding. Having a little nest egg and plenty of time has afforded me the opportunity to build and study and learn every day. Ampbuilding has become my life's ambition. I've started my own business, and I aspire to be as successful as I am driven.
I am blessed to have such an opportunity, and more importantly, to be married to a wife who supports my goals and dreams every step of the way.

[kyoungsteadt]

Hi,

I'm Kris. I'm 43.

I play guitar in praise and worship settings mostly now. I really enjoy it.

You can accuse me of being a turd polisher and am glad I did it, since I have a really nice sounding amp out of the deal and it lead to my first scratch build which is a TW variant that is in the mp3 area of this site.

I play a Les Paul Studio mostly these days and a couple of Godins.

I have also built a bunch of pedals, too.

On my day job I man the help desk for a Macintosh consulting and support company.

Lets see if I can post few pics for you...

[IMG:662:800]http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m72/ ... CN1502.jpg[/img]

[IMG:800:366]http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m72/ ... adt/LP.jpg[/img]

[IMG:527:520]http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m72/ ... CN1499.jpg[/img]

[titanicslim]

Hi!

I'm Dave Riggs, I live in Joplin, on the Ozark Plateau (no mtns here- world record molehill, though) where I was born, although I lived nearly all my previous adult life in the "Upper Left-hand Corner", in both Washington and Oregon.

My wife and twenty-six yr old son live in Olympia. WA. She takes care of mother, he takes care of the loading dock at a Best Buy. I've got a great 1/2 German Shepherd pup named Murphy. He's the guy holding my soldering iron in my avatar. (Although, to be fair, he probably sensed the heat and assumed we were smoking it

I am a woodworker and make a few guitars per year which I shall continue to do until each new one is no longer an improvement on the last. I held various jobs during my life but the one I kept coming back to, and eventually staying with, was lutherie.

I worked a little bit with Steve Davies (the guy who made and sold to Washburn the "extended cutaway" models they produced in the... eighties? But mostly, I taught myself, alone, the hard way. I paid cash for all the wood explosions, mechanical cracking of expensive tropical hardwoods, tool failures, making all the tooling etc. Only in my thirties did I go and meet with true masters in Central Europe.

Also I was in the army for twelve years and boatbuilding for about eight years. During which time I STILL continued making guitars. And now, of all the unlikely things, I somehow get sucked into this thing of making amps. And really getting off on it! What gives?

Dave

[dartanion]

Dave,

We're blood brothers bro! Except for the lutherie bit, which I am doing research on now and have been bugging a friend to teach me.

I have been woodworking since grade school and now have a nice set of tools, but no real shop. Although, my remodel is at the stage where I get to build all sorts of great woodworking projects: arts and crafts style mantle, book shelves, entertainment unit to house the 55" HDTV , entry wall in all hardwood (around front entry 8' entry doors), Wrap some vertical posts, finish and trim the great room beams, install and finish interior doors, install moldings and trim throughout the house (EVERYTHING, I may even manufacture moldings as I did the flooring in my new laundry room), and much more. It's kind of a woodworkers dream, but it's hard to make much progress with a 9-5 gig.

I got sucked in to building amps before building guitars, which I have always wanted to do. I have gotten more serious about it recently and started accumulating parts for a LP style build. I'd love to do a gold top 54 LP clone, but it is way too temping to do something with some wildly figured wood and cool finish. I just picked up a really cool piece of claro walnut that's insanely figured.

Amps are totally addictive as there are so many cool things you can build. They're like jobs. Find a new one every now and then.

Any tips for a beginner guitar builder? Books? Tutorials? Online resources, etc.

BTW - Your pup's a beaut!

[Tubetwang]

Gentlemen, my name is Louis and i'm vintage.

Here's my tube credentials :

I started the tube experience around 1963. I would take tubes off the family RCA every two days or so, and pedal my way to the pharmacy, were each tubes were diligently tested for emission.

In 2000 i discovered a big-time-interest in building/repairing/tweaking vintage hi-fi tube amps.

That led to building guitar amps. I scratched built the usual suspects with Tino Zottola's help. The internet gave me knowledge. I happily tapped in the generous amp building d.i.y community.
I'm now happily hooked.
I feel at peace when i'm building an amp.


Music credentials :

Played in garage bands from 1966 (Kinks, Yardbirds) to 1976 (skynyrd).
Participated in one high school Battle of the Bands.

P.S.
Tonequest and others...
Sorry, i don't give interviews.

[Tubetwang]

Dartanion,

http://buildyourguitar.com/

I got his cd-rom a few years ago but have'nt had time to build one yet.

[titanicslim]

Any tips for a beginner guitar builder? Books? Tutorials? Online resources, etc.
BTW - Your pup's a beaut!

Thanks! I can't wait 'til he's old enough I can build and buy a few pieces of good furniture and not fear walking in and finding it shredded.

www.luth.org hooks you up to the GAL- The Guild of American Luthiers, and probably the best place for all kinds of info. Check out their Big Red Books which can sometimes be found in good used book stores- as well as Amazon as I just noticed.

www.guitarmaker.org is website of the journal of ASIA (Association of stringed Instrument Artisans) and is very good but oriented more toward the business of professional lutherie.

www.mimf.org takes you to the Musical Instrument Makers Forum, which is web based. They have a lot of plans, books, discounts on tools- lots of stuff.

www.stewmac.com has a lot of great info on building and repair, as well as some of the most complete material you can find on the subject of finishing, which is problematic for the best woodworkers. They've got a great tutorial on pickup winding with a cordless drill. If you haven't tried "rolling your own" you've got a wonderful surprise in store. With a little practice, you can wind better pickups than you can buy at almost any price. From their homepage, left-hand column, scroll down 'til you see "Free Information".

You are very lucky in that there is an organization right down the road comprised of some of the best instrument makers in the World, called The Northern California Association of Luthiers. Call Brian Burns (707-961-1064) and he'll put you on the mailing list.

Finally, go to frets.com for a dizzying array of tips, methods, shortcuts, links and every type of info you can even imagine on any subject concerning stringed instrument.

And of course you can always PM me if you have any question or problems. That goes for anyone on the forum.

Dave

[outtahear]

John

Guitar/Amp tech@ B.F.Egypt Guitars,
inveterate (degenerate?) Gear head

Los Angeles, CA

Been at this too long,
first w/Angela instruments on the right coast,
now B.F.E on the left w/lots of bands in-between.

Lost count on builds/repairs, BUT
I have addressed boxes with, and sent checks to,
a lot of names in this thread

[fusionbear]

Carl, 41 in 2007'
from Whittier, CA
CT/MRI tech background, recently started doing mods and repairs on guitar amps. Been playin guitar since 76', learned some amp stuff from Jose Arredondo in 80-81' Love old Marshall, Dumble, T-Wreck circuits, and I do like C+ circuits too.....

[jujudubluz]

julien

i live in france in Rouen, 1 hour a way from Paris
will be 27 on november the 4th
i'm an architect, also been playing guitar since the age of 13
i just love graphism too, and love the outter design of amps faceplates...

i love gear, own many amps and guitars mostly strats

built a few pieces of gear, a few pedals for me and friends, a deluxe 5E3, modded a fender bassman, and assembled warmoth parts too HAHA.

i mostly lurk over here but hope to learn as much as i can from you guys, and help you whenever i can

juju

[Fredaxis]

Bonjour tout le monde !!!!

Could be nice to introduce myself as well

I am 43, live in the north east of France (Epinal).

Started building my own guitars at age 20 and got the amp bug 3 years ago when I bought a 5F1 from Tino Zottola....

I then soon ordered a 5e3 kit from Ceriatone, follown by a 18watt TMB.
I did a conversion of an old Galanti SuperBass into a 6V6LiteIIb with a cascade mod (big thanks to ZP and the whole 18watt.com community),
I am right now finishing a 6V6Plexi (Thanks to our new moderator, Mark, you rule!!!) and another LiteIIb with EL84 this time.
I am also preparing/buying parts for my future Express built.
A P1ex and a kind of 50w AB763 are already in the wish list.... Where will that stop

You can have a look at part of this stuff here:http://www.18watt.com/modules.php?set_a ... _album.php

Well.. glad to be part of this great community!!!!

[mrmega]

Hi!

My name is Perran. I am a pro writer/musician/producer and live in the Philadelphia area. I love tube amps and have for many many years.

I have a ton of guitars,amps and effects (not to mention all my studio equipment) and the one amp you guys might like is a 1968 Dual Showman BF circuit. I just got it. It's all original and I think I am about to have a cap job done on it cause everyone that has seen it, and knows anything has recommended I do just that. This is my first truly vintage amp and when I got it I wanted to learn about it so I have read a bunch so I could properly care for it.

Anyways, I play all kinds of music, I grew up playing country, blues, rock, jazz, hard rock and metal. I still play that and more.

I really admire the knowledge you guys have. I am not a tech but I do have good ears. I started lurking here to learn more about amps. I probably don't offer you guys much, expect a polite informed opinion from a writer/musician/producers point of view... so up until now I have kept quiet, stayed out of the way and tried my hardest to learn

I might want to ask a question now and again if it's ok. I have thought about building a very simple amp because of how much fun and how much some of you guys seem to learn by doing it. I will need to finish the construction of my new studio rooms first though.

Anyways, I don't want to be a thread hog so I will leave you with my kindest regards.

[anyone]

Well, seeing as how there are so many cool people here who freely share info, I might as well share mine...

My name is Chris, and I'm pretty much just a lurker here, though I can't really say why... I'm fascinated by amps but just don't get how they work; I guess I just hang out here in hopes that something will sink in through some kind of osmosis or something... My brother did a D'Lite kit as his first build, though, and that thing sounds awesome! I'm darn near tempted to try to get one of those fine kits myself...

I'll try to contribute when I can, but I can't promise much...

Here's my first contribution:

Any tips for a beginner guitar builder? Books? Tutorials? Online resources, etc.

BTW - Your pup's a beaut!

There's some cool stuff here too:
http://finetunedinstruments.com/B3/html/MHL.htm

You can also see a pic of my dog and hear some soundclips here:
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemus ... dID=499287

Cheers,

Chris

[Phil_S]

Dave H here. 45 yrs old.... I've built numerous amps, several being 'Wreck circuits....mostly Express style, with one being a variant using 6021 micro-miniature pencil type triodes in the preamp (the ones with flying leads) and a 6aq5 output.

Would you consider sharing the schematic and some gut shots on you 6AQ5 amp? that is the kinda stuff I really love!!
rj

Please. Start a new thread with it.
--Phil

[Phil_S]

I'm Phil. 55 years old. I am a CPA doing consulting work as a sole practitioner. I work almost exclusively with non-profit organizations. I like to do "clean up" work (untangle, rearrange and reorganize a set of incomprehensible books of account) and accounting systems set up work. I've installed PeopleSoft and QuickBooks and some products in between. I'd like to say that I can find something to match the organization's needs and pocket book. I also help smaller organizations with what I call "the heavy lifting" by providing a full range of accounting, business and technology expertise they can't get from a full-timer due to budgetary limitations.

I'm an incessant noodler. I was glad to see there is someone else here like me, who can't play a song all the way through. I have occasional flashes of talent that are interspersed between long stretches of guitar playing wasteland. I've been playing since my teen years and am still a terrible player. I used to play 'cello and at one time could read music. Alas, those days are long past.

Guild Starfire IV (Westerly, RI) and PRS Soapbar II (Korea), Gibson Gospel (100th Anniversary-Montana)

I got addicted to amp building when I got my first electric guitar and a tube amp for my 50th. The amp is a Gibson Minuteman (c. 1965-6). The amp hummed like you wouldn't believe. I couldn't find anyone to fix it, so I fixed it myself, and there were a number of problems in it. I got a lot of help from alt.guitar.amps, which wasn't nearly the cesspool it is now. So much for unmoderated groups. I like to build with recycled parts when I can get them.

Builds:
Gilmore Jr. Kit
AA764 Champ from scratch built with junk parts (6AQ5) http://tinyurl.com/22nnbf
5E3 from recycled Webcor chassis
AC15 variant (didn't come out so good)
JTM45 from Arkay FL-30 iron (EL34) http://tinyurl.com/32whmw
TMB18W (have no idea where I got that iron -- used a Scott hifi OT) Used 6GK6 instead of EL84 http://tinyurl.com/2deax9
VibroChamp with fixed bias (6AQ5) http://tinyurl.com/27bcvq

Planning: TW Express w 6AQ5's.

I'm delighted to meet all of you.