Rocket finished

[stevek66]

Well,I wrapped up my Rocket build.Fired up without a hitch.Sounds really nice.Dead quite,even without a bottom.I used the 9144/8093-1 PT/OT.
Voltages were a little bit lower than Ron and Fishy's build.Could be tubes.
I'll post voltages later.Couldn't be happier though it sounds excellent.Now I need to put the last couple of coates of Laquer on my cab and faceplate
and I'll slap her together




Steve

[M Fowler]

Nice job Steve,

The cab looks very nice as well. How is the face plate coming? I have to get my trannies for the rocket and make three face plates too.

Mark

[RJ Guitars]

Quite nice!! I hope you are better than I have been at getting some clips out.

I'd love to see your voltages and your thoughts on how clean/dirty she is.... where she starts to break up and such.

There are a few hybrids with the Sprague caps but this might be the first traditional style build I've seen with them. I'll be curious if that difference is something we'll be able to hear or not.

Great job... would love to hear it!

rj

[stevek66]

Voltages: AC=119.6 FIL.V=6.13

REC-GZ34
2-287.6
4-247.5 AC
6-247.5 AC
8-287.6

B1-288
B2-286
B3-207
B4-179
B5175.5

V1
1- 110.2
3- .803
6- 84
8-. 618
V2
1-178.9
2-110.8
3-110.8
V3
1-162.8
2-27.5
3-41.6
6-165.2
V4-V7
3-8.68
7-281.3
9-278.2


Voltage chart
I'm using JJ tubes across the board at this moment.Probably keep the EL84's in and start playing with Pre-amp tubes.I've got a stash of Amperex BB's,Brimars,Mullards and RFT's to play with.

Thanks Steve

[stevek66]

Thought I would add,This amp stays pretty clean all the way to about 1 o'clock on the volume and then starts to breakup after that.This Rocket is no were near as loud as my 2 Express builds.Both of those are fire breathers were this Rocket,to me is more of a killer blues/blues rock machine.On 10 it has good classic rock crunch.I hooked up my pedal board to it to check that out.Takes Reverb and delay nice and my OCD ver1 sounds killer thru it.So all in all this is a very versatile amp.I'll be playing out with it next Sat.

Steve

[sst4270]

Nice job Steve. Would love to hear some clips and some final pictures when it's finished.

Steve

[fishy]

Steve,
Nice looking build.

Regarding the breakup, mine has the 5.2k in it. I have actually tried the 470 clone but took it back out. It did increase the headroom breaking up a notch or two after the 5.2k but it lost some of the mojo for me when you crank it. The cleans were great and had a bit more on the top and bottom. I also thought it was a tad louder and heavier.
My Rocket also seems a bit bass heavy to me so extra bottom end was not what I was after.
I have put the 5.2k back in and still might switch out again as a sanity check or just build another one with the 4.3k

The cut control is extremely effective on this amp.

I will be interested to hear some clips.

Pete

[Zippy]

Looks good, Steve.

I'd give the cathode bypass cap on the output tubes a lil' standoff - that cathode resistor has heat sink fins for a reason!

Note also the extra hole in the front panel. If you move the Cut control over there, you'll have room for a Mid control. It's perhaps a subtle change but a 25k pot can do a lot for you on this amp - and you can still set it to the value of the fixed resistor if you find that's the sweet spot for you. I'm betting you'll like it a lil' higher.

[RJ Guitars]

...mine has the 5.2k in it. I have actually tried the 470 clone but took it back out. It did increase the headroom breaking up a notch or two after the 5.2k but it lost some of the mojo for me when you crank it. The cleans were great and had a bit more on the top and bottom....My Rocket also seems a bit bass heavy to me so extra bottom end was not what I was after...

Pete

Are you saying The Rocket is a "Fat Bottom Girl"? With the AC-30 connection I think that is appropriate.

rj

[Fischerman]

Get on yer bikes 'n ride!

[stevek66]

I spent last night putting the Rocket thru it's paces.I got to tell ya'll,this thing has just a incredible clean tone.Add a little delay and wow,really sick.For the clean to slightly dirty breakup/hendrix kinda chordal vibe,wow +++.I ended up with a different than expected pre-amp tube line up.V1-Brimar 12ax7,V2-GT12ax7M,V3-JJ 12ax7.Go figure.
Power tubes are JJ's.
I guess I'm pretty Happy.
Steve

[RJ Guitars]

Steve,

Nobody yet has complained about the clean tone on these amps... whats not to like I guess?

From what I can read into it, the 470 Tranny vs. the 5200 holds on to the cleans a little bit longer.

It's good to have a tone report on this unit...

thanks,

rj

[Fischerman]

I built my Rocket with a Mercury Magnetics Woden clone which I think is 4.2k. But my voltages are higher than some others...my B+ is at around 310vdc...plates at around 305vdc and my cathodes are at about 9.5vdc (50 ohm shared Rk). But it does break up a little earlier than I first expected. I got the 5k2 OT from RJ when I was sourcing parts and intended to compare but once the amp was done and sounded good I didn't want to disturb anything. Looks like there are several alternatives and they all sound good.

FWIW, I just used that 5k2 Heyboer from RJ in a tube rectified, 2xEL34/6L6, cathode-biased, no NFB amp (~395vdc B+) and I'm very pleased with it. That amp (~21W clean/30W cranked) has a tiny bit more power than my Rocket (~18W clean/28W cranked). The Heyboer PT in this amp appears to be a less stout version of a TW PT (only 200mA HT rating IIRC and it's a laydown...I think it's called a PT-630 or HTS-7237). I got it at least 5 years ago direct from Heyboer...just kind of spec'd it out and that's what they sent me.

I actually like that I can get into the slightly broken up tone at a reasonable volume (still pretty loud). That's really where I like to play these amps...volume at half or a little over.

[stevek66]

Here she is with clothes on.
Steve

[Structo]

Good job and great cab.

Your wiring looks real nice.