ampmike wrote: ↑Mon Oct 14, 2019 1:31 pm
Man that is a killer piece of history.I had five mesas at one time.When they came out the 70's late were a grand.I would love to get one like yours.It would be like getting a earley strat or tele.And the fact you got the wood cab.Thats a keeper for sure Have fun with that amp,Mikey
Relay switch is not stock but left it in as part of the amps journey
From Randall Smith himself...
Definitely a genuine Very Early Boogie.
--the shiny front panel: I was just teaching myself silk-screening and this was before I discovered a "matte finish" spray that got rid of that shiny acrylic look, which I didn't like.
--
the BOOGIE logo: Again Very Early! I laid that out first to distinguish the boosted Princetons from stock, after I heard a guy at our Prune Music store say, "I saw Santana headline the Fillmore with a Princeton - - but mine's not even enough for my garage. How does he do it?" I realized my "wolf hiding in sheep's clothing" was a little too well hidden and should generate a little visibility. Shortly after this Boogie was built, I deleted the three lines as being too busy.
--
the transformers: Right -- they're from Fender. I was a huge Fender repair guy and they were used to seeing me order transformers . . . until I ordered so many, it threw off their production! When they found out I was building amps myself, they cut me off. Getting around the 1,000 piece minimum at the Woodward-Schumacher Transformer Co. was a HUGE big deal as my entire future depended on it. I wrote a letter to their Mr. Bob Iverson explaining my case, after he told me they needed ". . . a check for $270,000.00 to take my order"! He didn't know what to think of the letter and showed it to his wife. She said I looked like a struggling but legit guy and "show the letter to the President." Same thing: President wasn't sure what to do and showed the letter to HIS wife and she too said, "Seems like a nice guy. Give him a break and take a chance -- you never know." Thanks to those two wives, Mesa exists today and is the number one customer of the former "Woodward Transformer Co." (now renamed) after it split from Schumacher. We also split from Schumacher when they transferred their production to Mexico.
I 've never taken any course in electronics but my university education (Cal Berkeley during all the riots!) focused on Creative Writing - - a goof-off program that was to be of great value in writing that letter and the 20 patents we've earned. Most of my time at Cal was spent playing drums in Martha's Laundry (our blues-rock band), working on amps at our Prune Music, delivering the Chronicle newspaper at 6:00 am. every morning for the only reliable income and, of course: getting high.
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the LEVEL control: writers have it exactly right: this very early Boogie had the extra gain stage at the end of the preamp chain, just as did the Lee Michaels preamps built for the Crowns. As it was always 'high gain" and difficult to dial a good clean sound, I soon moved the extra stage to the front of the preamp chain with a separate jack to enable a typical Fender style clean. I still remember the moment "the light went one" and I figured out the solution . . . it only required a special Input jack, that Switchcraft wouldn't make. Finally, I figured out how to do the gain-stage switching by simply plugging into one of their more esoteric jacks and that became the Mark 1, so named only AFTER the foot-switching Mark 2 came out and earned my first patent 4,211,893. That ushered in independent, foot switchable Clean and Lead modes.
--the circuit boards: Inside, I'm sure will be some of those early printed circuit boards I fabricated myself: design the circuit pattern, silk-screen the etch resist, put in hot, agitated ferrous sulfate acid, clean, drill, stuff, solder . . . looking back, would have been MUCH faster to simply wire point-to-point! But I wanted total consistency, especially important with such high gain - - no worry Fender or others would copy, anymore that GM would build production race cars! Best part was, the "happy accidents" that actually made them sound better, some of which we only discovered when Santana asked us to "re-issue" an amp just like one of his first. That became the King Snake where we discovered and verified (via blind-fold testing) some of these subtle bits of tone magic.
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the Hardwood Cabinet: Again, one of the very first. I can tell by its roughness. Wish I could determine the type of wood from the pics as I used many different ones. Eventually my friend Jake took over building the hardwoods and the fit and finish was better. For the last 20 years, one man at Boogie has built and finished all the woodies and is so proud of each one. Takes one whole week to apply the hand-rubbed bees-wax and oil finish.
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the chassis: I can tell by the slope angle of the front panel, this is a chassis I "made" from a stock steel box. Was thrilled when I discovered a company in South San Francisco (edge of Silicon Valley) that would make chassis for me in very small numbers. They had difficulty with the slope front and I returned the first batch to be better welded when I saw Mahavishnu's broken chassis and was shocked that it had failed . . . whereas none of mine had!
So much learning-- by doing. And at that time, I was really enjoying all the processes involved in building an amplifier. The thought that "some guy" could build an amplifier was completely radical back then when everything else came from giant corporate factories. "The Cheek", as the Brits might say! . . . and, without knowing it, I was the first "boutique" amp builder. We still do things just like we did then. We're just much better at it after 50 years of learning.
Hope this old amp is still making someone happy!!
Cheers
RCS
Hey - -
I just scrolled down further and saw the inside pictures.
Yep: those are early hand-made printed circuit boards. (Don't know what/who added that other thingy - - not me)
The power supply board is a heavy piece of acrylic with eyelets to anchor the heavier parts.
Those yellow Cornell/Dublier filter capacitors were supposedly high-tech/expensive BUT in actuality, most (of the 60 uf) were defective! Turned out an internal weld was not done properly and showed up as a huge GACKING sound when the amp was played loud and vibrated.
Mike Bendinelli was painting the ceiling of our bathroom when I made the discovery. I said, "Mike, put down the paint brush and come with me. I'm going to show you how to remove these defective capacitors. When you're done, I'll show you how to put in the replacements." Forty-three years later, Mike B. is still here, the Expert on maintaining especially those oldest amps!
Memory Lane . . .
RCS
When I said five mine were all from 92 on.I would love to get one even from 1980.Thank you for sharing your amp,like I said there were two things we all wanted in 1975,A black Les Paul costume and a Mesa Boogie amp in hardwood cab.Great find.Hold on to that baby