Early pics of my Express build.

[MCK]

Amazing build! Congratulations. Can't wait to hear of your impressions once you hear it.

[Reeltarded]

Alright! More awesome ampness!

You are suffering from redfilamenting! There must be voltages arriving at your tubes~! I predict a blue glow when you crank it and make a noise.




WTG! Looks fantastic! Love it!

[angelodp]

Now that is a beautiful build. Congrats.

[leadfootdriver]

Thanks fellas! I couldn't have done it without this forum, and all of you putting up with all' my questions!

I can tell this amp is begging to be turned up. But, I need to wait for my neighbor to go to work!

[hans-jörg]

Man, is this picture working? And all this nice colores! Awsome.

I have a neighbour witch goes to sleep at 5-6 pm. Because he is working in the night. This sucks because I come home this time from work and want to play or test some mods. When I´ll want to play in the morning before work , so at 8 -10am this guy is going to sleep because afterwork.
Thats not fair, so sometimes I play some psychodelic Hendrix stuff in the morning, like the US hymne from J.H. (Woodstock version)

Waiting to hear some clips of this amp!

Hans-Jörg

[Colossal]

I have a neighbour witch goes to sleep at 5-6 pm.

That sounds like his problem to me, not yours.

[RJ Guitars]

Love those high res photos and can't wait for the sonic report and some sound clips.

[Structo]

Nice looking build.

One thing I noticed is this picture.
Hopefully you have the amp on Standby with just the heaters glowing.
Because as you probably know, it's very bad on the OT to operate the amp without a speaker load connected.

[img768]http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh26 ... G_1199.jpg[/img]

[M Fowler]

This amp layout reminds of the very early amps TAG members were cranking out before a layout was created.

Mark

[leadfootdriver]

Here's a few more pics. It will never look this clean again, so I might as well document it while it lasts.

[IMG768]http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh26 ... G_1213.jpg[/img]

[IMG768]http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh26 ... G_1210.jpg[/img]


The first Mod! .0047 cap on the feedback lead. More low end, which is how I like it.

[IMG768]http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh26 ... G_1214.jpg[/img]

[hans-jörg]

Nice looking build.

One thing I noticed is this picture.
Hopefully you have the amp on Standby with just the heaters glowing.
Because as you probably know, it's very bad on the OT to operate the amp without a speaker load connected.

[img768]http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh26 ... G_1199.jpg[/img]

Morning,
I shorten the output always with a switched jack when no speaker is on. So the OT sees at least a endless high load and no damage is possible. Had never problems with it.

Hans-Jörg

[RJ Guitars]

That's the way it ought to be... Fender taught us that and most builders/manufacturers follow that protocol. I like it!

[Structo]

I don't mean to be a nit picker but those don't look like shorting jacks.
And I don't really care either way but I was just pointing out in case someone that doesn't know it's bad to operate the amp without a speaker load.
Most likely it is on standby.

[img:400:300]https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-vcsR ... G_1190.jpg[/img]


I haven't seen anybody wire the octal sockets like that before.

Is there a reason the resistor is on pin 8 and pin 1 goes to ground?

Usually what I see is pins 1 & 8 jumpered then the resistor to ground or straight to ground.

I haven't worked with EL34's before so I was just curious.

[leadfootdriver]

I don't mean to be a nit picker but those don't look like shorting jacks.
And I don't really care either way but I was just pointing out in case someone that doesn't know it's bad to operate the amp without a speaker load.
Most likely it is on standby.

[img:400:300]https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-vcsR ... G_1190.jpg[/img]


I haven't seen anybody wire the octal sockets like that before.

Is there a reason the resistor is on pin 8 and pin 1 goes to ground?

Usually what I see is pins 1 & 8 jumpered then the resistor to ground or straight to ground.

I haven't worked with EL34's before so I was just curious.

My thought was to have the least amount of resistance possible; with each pin having its own lead to ground. Whether or not it really makes a difference, I don't know. Despite the thin looking leads of that resistor, it's a 2-watt value, with the leads being very strong compared to a lower wattage resistor with a thicker lead. That 2-watter must have much more carbon in the metal formulation. But I digress...

On a builders level, it was easy to do it the way I did because the leads were so long that the resistor held itself into place exactly as it looks before I soldered it in. I cut the excess length when I was done.

[leadfootdriver]

It's been a while since I've visited this build.. My brain is far away from building amps right now. But I remember this was a lot of work for a casual builder..
Still have it.