martin manning wrote:I must say you don't give up easily!
Thanks Martin!
Giving up isn't an option. I'm the product of a 30 year military man who always insisted we follow through on what we start. Not to air dirty laundry here but the one thing the old man gave me is a strong work ethic.
I've been building guitars for nearly ten years and the first few drove me to the brink of insanity but they got better every time. The second attempt of this build is just part of the learning curve. A curve that has been navigated with kind help from folks like yourself.
My goal in all this is to play one of my guitars, with my hand-wound pickups through an amp I built myself. It will happen some day...soon, I hope.
I would like to advise you to find someone in your area who can help you out with some basic stuff. I see that you are really willing to build this and do not give up easily, even though it does not come easy right now. I really respect your persistence. I think you would benefit a lot from an in person practical 101 with a more experience builder.
I was shown a bunch of things in the beginning, and it helped me a lot. Actually, I still try to learn this way today.
That same builder may be able to scope your amp as well when it is cleaned up a bit.
I would like to advise you to find someone in your area who can help you out with some basic stuff. I see that you are really willing to build this and do not give up easily, even though it does not come easy right now. I really respect your persistence. I think you would benefit a lot from an in person practical 101 with a more experience builder.
I was shown a bunch of things in the beginning, and it helped me a lot. Actually, I still try to learn this way today.
That same builder may be able to scope your amp as well when it is cleaned up a bit.
Where are you located?
Good advice. I'm in SW Indiana near the KY border. There are a few good amp techs here in town but I don't know any of them personally. I may go that direction if things go wrong on the rebuild.
This is my most recent build. Hand built in my garage. It's around the 30th guitar I've built from scratch. I want to play it through this amp like you wouldn't believe.
One piece alder body, rock maple neck, black clay markers, vintage tuners, mint green guard with scatter wound Alnico 5 pickups. 2 way truss rod, vintage hardtail bridge, two-tone nitro finish. 6.2 lbs.
JazzGuitarGimp wrote:Beautiful guitar, the finish is yummy!
martin manning wrote:That's a real beauty!
Thanks guys! If I can develop attention to detail in my amps like I have with my guitars, I'll be golden. But so much of the detail work comes after the knowledge is second nature.
A couple of sound demos of the Strat through a Blues Deluxe with a little delay and an OD pedal on the dirty cut. If my Bassman sounds anything like this, I'll be a very happy man.
If I ever did anything that looked like magic it was done with trickery. Turns out I am the man behind the curtain pulling my strings, you just never see the production meetings.
Well, I mean you guys do.. but..
(Imma moron)
Signatures have a 255 character limit that I could abuse, but I am not Cecil B. DeMille.
M Fowler wrote:
I'm not telling you to stop your doing very well with the help and hopefully soon you will discover the main problem and play that amp.
All I'm saying to myself perhaps that there has been so many builders lately. Dave hasn't helped sort this out?
I hear you. No worries.
He's had some suggestions but I haven't been updating the thread over at TDPRI. Things have been moving pretty quickly in this thread so I've been focusing on the help I've received here.
The guitar sounds as good as it looks! How much of the Bassman circuit are you planning to strip out? If the answer is most of it I would recommend getting some different wire. The fake vintage stuff (insulated wire with a cloth cover) seems to be difficult to work with. The real stuff did not have to be stripped, just clipped to length, and the insulation pushed back with fingers to expose the conductor. You can get that stuff if you really want to make a vintage-looking amp, but since you already went with turrets instead of eyelets, I'm guessing that's not what you're about. 22AWG top-coated or pre-tinned 600V PVC appliance wire is my choice.
martin manning wrote:The guitar sounds as good as it looks! How much of the Bassman circuit are you planning to strip out? If the answer is most of it I would recommend getting some different wire. The fake vintage stuff (insulated wire with a cloth cover) seems to be difficult to work with. The real stuff did not have to be stripped, just clipped to length, and the insulation pushed back with fingers to expose the conductor. You can get that stuff if you really want to make a vintage-looking amp, but since you already went with turrets instead of eyelets, I'm guessing that's not what you're about. 22AWG top-coated or pre-tinned 600V PVC appliance wire is my choice.
Thanks Martin!
I did a complete tear down. All components off the board, thorough cleaning and whoever invented the solder sucker has my undying gratitude.
I'm dumping the cloth wire. I have black and white 18awg PVC that I'll use. I started with it but changed to the cloth covered because I felt the PVC was too stiff to work with in the chassis. It's about the same. I'll still use the cloth covered green for the heaters.
