5E3 build questions

[Baxtercat]

Firestorm, Fender used the brass plate because it made assembling the controls in the angled chassis less labor intensive. The pots,switches and components were stuffed and soldered to the brass plate as a sub assembly before moving to the next stage of building.

Disclaimer, my memories of the $2.50/hour [or whatever] job are quite faded. Exactly 40-years ago now.

I do recall us installing each pot to the chassis in sequence, juggling the washers, nut, air-powered nut driver, etc. I remember abrading-off my left thumb print once or twice from the spinning solder lugs if I cross-threaded the nut/pot!

They got got smart and likely started that sub-assembly procedure after I worked there in '72/'73.

[ic-racer]

I recently built a 5e3. I used a buss bar to ground the pots and ran this ground to the chassis near the input jacks. I ran the preamp tubes cathodes to that point and connected the jacks grounds to that point also. Jacks also ground to the chassis. The power supply capacitors and other items ground to some points on the chassis near the power transformer.
The amp works well.[img768]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v670/ ... le-167.jpg[/img]