Advice needed Moding an amp

[RyGy]

I know that some might view this as completely wrong to even contemplate, but I am going to try modifying one of the channels on my Peters custom dual channel. I got the amp used, and I love the distortion channel the warhawk. Instead of having a clean channel it has a british channel called the harrier. Both channels are completely separate, so I can mod the harrier channel without effecting the warhawk channel. I am thinking about changing the harrier channel into loanstar clean channel with a slightly different tone stack, and since the harrier channel uses two 12ax7s, and the lonestar uses two 12ax7s for clean, and lead I am thinking about using the existing switch to allow me to switch in the extra gain stage of the loanstar. I will need to put in two dual pots one for gain, and one for volume so that I can have both loanstar channels usable. I am planning on sharing the tone stack between both channels.

 

The only other mod that I have done on an amp is to the master volume of my old Mesa F-50. The Peters amp is all PTP wired on a turret board so I don't see much difficulties in the soldering. I am also going to make a schematic of the Harrier channel in case I ever want to mod it back to stock specs (I will not be sharing that schematic).

 

I am looking for some advice, tips, or tricks from anyone who has either built, or modified amps before. I am an electronics engineering technologist, but they don't teach you about tubes in that course.

[tedmich]

Its difficult to help without a schematic, much good advice and knowledgable people here:

 

http://music-electronics-forum.com

 

also AX84.com and books by Gerald Weber, Richard Kuehnel and Morgan Jones (all at Amazon). With your background you'll likely be safe (you know about bleeding caps and to respect B+). I highly recommend extensive pre and post mod digital documentation, and good luck on the schematic (reverse engineering from PTP is a PITA IMO).

 

Good luck!