Monkeymatic Trinity (5e3 Deluxe)

[xtian]

I bent my first chassis! Got a Harbor Freight 30" brake. I'm using 0.090" 5000 alloy aluminum. It's so thick, I had to score the breaks with my table saw, cutting a bit less than halfway through the material. Worked perfectly, and so damn sturdy, I abandoned the idea of reinforcing the ends with plywood.

I thought I might be doing some welding, so went and bought some Alumaweld and a propane torch. Great process--very easy and makes great, strong joins. But after folding this chassis and realizing how strong it is by itself, I won't be welding anything.

The PT is a vintage Triad from my vintage buddy at the flea market, and the OT is a Fender Bandmaster 4k/4R, which I'll be running at 8K/8R with a pair of 6V6.

I'm building on Doug Hoffman's (excellent!) 5e3 layout, and adding a VVR to scale the whole hog. Solid state rectifier. Two input jacks, with a switch to bridge them.

[Colossal]

Looks great Aaron. I always enjoy the creativity of your builds and watching them unfold. I built a (modded) 5E3 a while back and it is a great amp. Beautiful tone therein. Oh, and I had a very fine vintage laquered Tweed cab made for it and it is robust in my opinion. Lightweight yes, but sturdy.

[xtian]

Thanks, Dave!

[xtian]

I built a VVR using a hefty MOSFET (STW20NK50Z) 'cause that's what I have on hand from the B+ reducers. Made a convenient layout combined with a 22uF reservoir cap and full-wave rectifier. This module, with the 1M pot, provides variable 500-45v DC (unloaded).

[Smokebreak]

Looks like fun! Let me know when you start selling chassis

[loctal]

Nice chassis work. Thanks for showing.

[Phil_S]

Nice chassis work. Thanks for showing.

Yes, my thoughts exactly!

[Structo]

Looks like you did a great job on that chassis.

Do you know the alloy or number of the material?

[xtian]

Thanks, everybuds. The Alu is 5052--the only choice offered at my "local", which is 25 miles away. Awesome place, All Metals--they'll laser and fold a custom chassis for $80 or so, and almost half that if one wants a whole sheet done (6-8 chassis).

But I'm always doing one-offs, so being able to hand tool and fold my own is cool.

Headed out to drill the turret board next...after a soak in the hot tub. I've heard it actually gets colder other places? But 30 degrees is quite a cold snap for Sunny CA.

[Smokebreak]

Mid 40s in TX and hell is officially freezing over.

[xtian]

All done, and fairly kickstompin!

With VVR at max, plates are high, at 387, and dissipation is over 100% with that 250R cat resistor. But I plan to put in a limiter at ~350 volts, where the bias is nicely balanced.

The VVR works nicely. Yes, I hear some crossover distortion at lower voltages, but at bedroom levels, the amp sounds really tweedy. I wasn't expecting to hear the sag, but it's really obvious.

The normal/jumpered switch I made works great, but I'm tempted to remove the #2 input, and just rely on the switch to take it in or out of the circuit.

Can't wait to crank this up tomorrow.

[SilverFox]

What would be a good selling price for an amp like this put into a box with, 1 12" speaker in the $75.00 range. In other words a 1 12 combo? How much would the parts cost assuming a decent build?

The target market would be old rockers that have disposable cash for recreation similar to the skiing, fishing, hunting crowd for example. I would think those clients would have $2000 or so per year for a recreational activity.

silverfox.

[Structo]

Nice!

I like the look of that black turret board.

[M Fowler]

Very nice job on both chassis build and the amplifier.

[xtian]

Thx, y'all!

SilverFox, when I build for myself, everything is made by hand, labor intensive--because labor is "free". But when I build for a client, sometimes it makes financial sense to buy a prebuilt chassis, turretboard, cabinet, etc. Depends on the budget.

When I have a contract for my full asking price (has happened, like, three times in five years), I charge about $60/hr for labor. I'm going to make a pine 1x12 cabinet for this, and by the time I'm done I'll have a bit less than 40 hours into it, making the amp "worth" about $3,000.

More realistically, I'll probably sell it after a few months or years for closer to $1,000.