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Finally getting to build my own amp


Guttermouth

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I've been wanting a blonde bassman (6g6) for more years than i can remember at this point. so gradually over the last couple of months i've been gathering parts ( old fender parts wherever possible) in hopes of taking some time off and building myself an amp.

so far, i had gotten everything but the chassis and transformers.then, the other day a buddy of mine was looking at ebay listings and pointed me to an auction for a 6g6 chassis and plate set ( reproductions).sooooo....

the chassis is here, all my excess work is cleared off the schedule and amp buildage is commencing. i'm gonna post some pics along the way,mostly for my own benefit and hope you guys enjoy seeing it come together. i'll be using salvaged fender and nos parts wherever i can because i like them and it's my amp :)

so far - i've got in the preamp sockets,pilot light, input jacks and have the faceplate on. i'll be ordering some various parts and drilling and staking the boards tommorrow and will try and update the thread fairly regularly :

 

bassfrontplate.jpg

 

bassmanbadge.jpg

 

oldlight.jpg

 

socketsoutside.jpg

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Will be watching! Been playing through an all tube bass rig that my guitarist built,and I love it.Not making a comparison to the vintage Fender,but mine sounds like a cross between an old Marshall,and an SVT,with a sweepable mid,and a direct out.Gotta figure a way to get some pics!!!

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yesterday was a great day. i put on a mono playlist (look them up if you've never heard of them - amazing :love:) and commenced to making a pair of eyelet boards. a buddy of mine is building one of these as well so we'll be helping each other out along the way.

first order of business was to make up a drilling template.i had my sticker/manual/printer guy take the 6g6 layout,isolate the board and blow it up to the correct scale and size. i took that printout,glued it onto a piece of cardboard,punched the holes, and used that to drill my boards out :

templateunpunched.jpg

 

template.jpg

 

drilledboards.jpg

 

as you can see - this board material is similar to the stuff they used in old fenders with one exception: the petroleum/plastic content is high enough that these will never suffer from board rot. the old fender boards can actually soak up humidity over the years and become conductive and do all kinds of other weird {censored}.these,in theory,should not have those problems.

 

after i drilled out the boards and cleaned the holes up with steel wool and an x-acto i dropped the eyelets in the correct holes,taped them in place with low tack tape flipped the board over and flared the bottoms out.

tapedeyelets.jpg

i use a staking tool i made by chucking it up in the drill press and using the handle on the press to flare the eyelets.

here's what the finished boards look like :

finishedboards.jpg

 

i also ordered the rest of the parts to complete the build last night.I'll be using f&t capacitors for the filtering and a combination of mallory 150's,n.o.s. fender molded and sprague atoms for everything else.the pots will be bourns solid shaft,24mm 1/4 watt. the resistors will be 1 and 2 watt carbon composition.the transformers will be a new hammond for the power and vintage fender for the choke and output.

the plan for today is to make up the bias boards and start populating the boards with the components i have on hand.:thu:

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Please tell me that you're not using the Fender faceplate.


Cool stuff GM!

 

yep - the plan is to use the faceplate as it's clearly a reproduction plate. the finished amp will be something fender didn't make so it won't be a direct clone of anything anyway.the circuit will be from the '61 era amps and the cosmetics will be a hybrid blonde/blackface affair so it definitely won't pass for a "real" fender.

the inspiration came from a transition princeton i had here a while back. something about the blackface cabinets with white knobs really does it for me.

princetonfront2.jpg

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