Marshall 5203 rebuild as...

[nickt]

Finally posted my Rocket (after finally turning it on successfully) over in the TW forum and found I'd mistaken my 5203 rebuild pics for the rocket build - yes I have a Senior's card and am getting forgetful... I blame the 70's.

So... about 4 years ago I found a 5203 Marshall out on the street in front of the local guitar shop - free! And with a perfectly good Celestion speaker. Result!

Here's what happened next - well after a bit of procrastination...

Ok so last year I started 'a build'. The idea was to replace the innards of the 5203 with an 18 watt something. Being 'brave' I decided to do the metal work from scratch on a blank chassis (I think it was from Ampmaker but I could be wrong).

Here's what I started with...

[nickt]

Now the chassis has nice 'wings' but is otherwise the correct size.

So I cut them off...

[nickt]

Metal work is hard when you only have a kitchen in a second story flat... but being an optimist I pushed ahead...

[nickt]

Bought some nice phenolic board and made the following...

Parts are from Ampmaker, Modulus Amplification and RS components - not sure where I got the F&T caps.

[nickt]

Despite the circumstances the metal work was finished kinda... except for the fact that the wings were missing and this was going to be a tubes down combo.

[nickt]

Well the less said about putting the wings back on the inside of the chassis the better. I remember it took a couple of attempts and involved a rivet gun. Otherwise wiring things up wasn't too painful.

[nickt]

Face plates were mirrored versions of standard 18 watt ones from Modulus Amplification. No big surprises but I should have got custom ones so the bezel was in the right place.

[nickt]

Rest of the build was pretty routine. Here's the results.

Lovely little amp - quiet by itself but with a lot of go. Was really pleased when it was done.. now to find somewhere to crank it up