The Amp Garage

I am over by the Stack. Like 2 miles north of the state fair grounds. I can pop out most round holes if you mark where you want them. I have 20 or 30 punches from 1/2" up to 4 1/2" and I mean 1/2" not 7/8" for conduit. I also have the big unibits for wowing out the holes in Mojo, Weber and other cha...

I don't care if he wired the space shuttle by himself, a death ray, whatever. Various types of wire have their designated places. Guitar amps are not very demanding as to what they need to work right. Materials engineers and electrical engineers have, in some cases, developed special wires for speci...

Since tone is not an issue, it can use New Sensor Shu Guang or JJ tubes. The other tubes are not as desireable as 6L6GB or 6L6GC pentodes. 5R4s? The surplus place across town has Chathams for cheap. I got a 560B schematic & suspect someone may have cheated & replaced a 640 volt CT with a 560 V CT po...

I got this for the price of the tubes. It only puts out 350 volts though. It is a SORENSEN NOBATRON 600B 600 volt half amp regulated power supply with bias & filament supplies. 500 volts at a half amp it will do a 100 watt amp, easy. I got a Fluke 555 volt @ 300 mA but it cuts off at 50-60 watt amps...

I am not sure if any of you use old Fluke, Sorensen Nobatron, Lambda, or other regulated DC power supplies, old HP distortion meters, antiquated O Scopes, or not, but I use them. I also have a few curve tracers, & other ancient test gear that is very suited to doing R&D, diagnostic work, & other stu...

I think they were using a Maxi Matcher and a Hickock 539C last I checked, neither of which is very good. The vintage testers are all over the map for voltages. If you know how to make a regulated output mod for the Triplett 3444, or preferably the 3444A you will have a tester that will stomp an Ampl...

You have a keeper. That tube compliment is one I use daily while playing in front of the TV. It sounds great, keeps the noise down, which keep other people in the house sane & happy. I got this GA 79 RTV in, and the front logo said Bell, with Bell on the schematic too, but the control panel says Gib...

I love seeing Kirchen play. One show, he looked like he had crawled out of a trash dumpster, or at least tried to was his clothes in one. His fly was half open, dirty blue jeans, and looked like he was homeless, but he was on fire that night. Some of his shows are better than others, but he always p...

The 120s are okay, but stay within the KT88 voltages. They are pretty clean, lots of good headroom, but they do not have the real KT88 Genalex Marconi Osram Valve sound. It almost has a touch of 6L6 & 6550 sound in it. Try a pair in a 75-120 watt amp, and see. I think you will find some sounds you l...

I am a box joint fan myself. Miter joints are almost as weak as butt joints. Contrasting hourglass keys look nice in a miter joint, especially with a light figured maple & walnut keys. They also align it and add strength. A concealed dovetail miter is hard to do but they work great. I hate to sugges...

I may try to reload XP on another desktop ans keep it for using Tubecad. Tubecad won't work on a 64 bit system. I still run an old Copmpaq Win98 with Buzz Feiten, and a lot of GPIB on it. It never goes online, as the flies get corrupted too often when I went online, so maybe it is time for Win7 and ...

Let me know how the USB thing works for you. Jameco made a cheap 1KHz sine wave injector kit that you could adjust the output for 0-2V P-P & freq +/-5% on. 1KHz, and 400KHz were the usual audio test freqs. Some people use 3KHz, or 5KHz. JIS is 3KHz, but we do not need to use JIS, unless we start clo...

I got an oddball drip front combo cab a while back. I called Seaside & said I need a drip front 22 deg slope x wide x deep x tall. He said Fender amps are not 22 deg double check. I did, & said that is what I need, it is not a Fender & it fits like a glove. He also did a standard box to put in an OL...

I have used a CNC plasma cutter for the EI scrapless GOES lam materials. Make sure you do not inhale the fumes. Bud Purvine & Nickolai Srvenovich both warned me about using plasma cutters & lasers to cut GOES nickel/silicon steel E-I lams. Nick invented the laser etching machine back in the 1980s. B...

CAREFUL ON THAT WELDING! You can more economically build welded rings for 10" 12" and 15" concentrically cut from sheet metal with a flat band welded between the two rings. Your welder had better know his stuff or the rings will come out warped from the heat of welding or cutting & you can tweak the...