Blues Jr Clone to Liverpool 18W conversion

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fmotagarcia
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Joined: Mon Mar 23, 2015 10:41 am

Blues Jr Clone to Liverpool 18W conversion

Post by fmotagarcia »

Made this conversion for a friend. He bought a chinese FBJ clone for £60 on eBay. The PT specs were correct, the OT was terrible so I replaced for a Fender that I found for around £10.

It sounds great and it's crazy loud. The cleans are just beautiful, rolling back the volume of the guitar I can get it to a point where it always sounds like it's about to break up.

It's a very sensitive amp, with every guitar I need to re-adjust everything to get it to sound right. You also need a guitar with good pots. I have an Epiphone 339 which I couldn't find the time to replace the electronics and I can't use the volume of the guitar to control the overdrive. My other guitars have CBS pots with vintage taper and between 7-10 I can fine tune the amount of overdrive I want.

The dressing could be neater and I've made some mistakes but I'm very happy with the result.

Oh, and I also added a VVR. It works well but don't expect "bedroom level". At very low levels, the amp loses much of it's character. It does however allow me to play it dimed and not be told off by the wife :)
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M Fowler
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Location: Walcott ND

Re: Blues Jr Clone to Liverpool 18W conversion

Post by M Fowler »

Nice job on the BJR revamp.

I've done two different rebuilds so far. Nice small gradb and go amp.

Mark
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dorrisant
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Re: Blues Jr Clone to Liverpool 18W conversion

Post by dorrisant »

Nice work! I have thought of so many possibilities for this chassis... Almost anything is better than stock.
"Education is what you're left with after you have forgotten what you have learned" - Enzo
ChopSauce
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Nice conversion!

Post by ChopSauce »

The dressing might have been neater, but the boards could have been much worse, also 8)
dorrisant wrote: Sat Mar 10, 2018 4:53 am Nice work! I have thought of so many possibilities for this chassis... Almost anything is better than stock.
:lol:
fmotagarcia
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon Mar 23, 2015 10:41 am

Re: Blues Jr Clone to Liverpool 18W conversion

Post by fmotagarcia »

I think I'll stop using silicone wire. It's easy to work with cause it doesn't melt and you can use thiner wire for the same current/voltage ratings but it's too flexible so it's hard to
make it stay in place and look nice.

Also if I was to do another of these I'd make the boards slightly wider and position them closer to the valves so I could have shorter runs.
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rooster
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Location: Pacific NW

Re: Blues Jr Clone to Liverpool 18W conversion

Post by rooster »

Hm, beautiful work except the power caps positioning. Better to turn these around 180 degrees.
Most people stall out when fixing a mistake that they've made. Why?
kryfcn
Posts: 18
Joined: Thu Dec 03, 2020 11:03 pm

Re: Blues Jr Clone to Liverpool 18W conversion

Post by kryfcn »

Great Job Man 🙂 Im new about amp building . Im prof. Musician since last 15 years. Nowadays im trying to build exactly same circuit.18 Watt Liverpool...
Im getting mains type Hum . Kinda 60cycle . I thought that the hum comes out of the uncorrect rectification or resistor and cap values . Could you please share critic values of the caps on the power section ? Thanks a lot .
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dorrisant
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Re: Blues Jr Clone to Liverpool 18W conversion

Post by dorrisant »

kryfcn wrote: Sat Dec 26, 2020 9:14 pm Great Job Man 🙂 Im new about amp building . Im prof. Musician since last 15 years. Nowadays im trying to build exactly same circuit.18 Watt Liverpool...
Im getting mains type Hum . Kinda 60cycle . I thought that the hum comes out of the uncorrect rectification or resistor and cap values . Could you please share critic values of the caps on the power section ? Thanks a lot .
Welcome!

Sounds like you should post a new topic in Trainwreck Discussion about your 18w build. Post some pics, ask some questions there and there will be a bunch of help. There are quite a few here that will help solve puzzles like that, just to get warmed up in the morning. ;)

60 Hz hum could be from a lot of things, most times it is a simple thing to get sorted. If we can see it, we can start to virtually prod around your build til it is solved.

Please don't take this as harsh, I'd certainly try to help.

Tony
"Education is what you're left with after you have forgotten what you have learned" - Enzo
kryfcn
Posts: 18
Joined: Thu Dec 03, 2020 11:03 pm

Re: Blues Jr Clone to Liverpool 18W conversion

Post by kryfcn »

Thanks for the quick reply Tony. Im going to do that.🙂👍
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