I recently acquired a silverface Fender Twin Reverb. I bought the amp in non-functioning condition, in part of a backline clearance.
The reason i bought the amp was because of the JBL D120F speakers, to pair with my silverface Bassman for pedalsteel use.
I got a pretty good deal on this Twin, and I already knew that it hasn't functioned properly for 15 years or so.
Due to that, I decided to pull the chassis and take a proper visual inspection before firing the amp up.
I have to admit that i was pretty shocked by what I saw. The amp had tells of previous modifications, as it has four different fuse holders on the back panel. The stock turret board and it's components looks mostly original, as far as I can tell, but the work done to it later is hazardous and pretty much the worst I've ever seen. Absolutely mind boggling that what I assume is a professional technician can do such terrible work.
The power tube sockets and components looks pretty damn shitty, and the more I poke around inside of this amp, the less faith I have in it's current condition. There are a lot of damaged insulation and wiring.
There's a lot of dodgy solderjoints all over the place. The unused taps of the export power transformer has been disconnected from the original rotary switch and was just bundled in one piece of electrical tape, no separate heat shrinking or anything. These are leads are cut very short, but I hope that I can manage to blind the unused taps in a safe fashion. Would these short tap leads pose any noise related/proximity issues in this way?
I don't have a lot of experience working on amps outside of bias adjustments and normal routine stuff, but I am an maritime electrician by trade and already have good soldering skills, so I have considered getting into the DIY amp building for a long time. I have been studying amps for the last while and think that I'm ready to begin DIY'ing the coming months.
After looking inside of this amp, I think the best solution would be to gut it, re-use the transformers and build something like a Hoffman single channel AB763, probably without reverb and tremolo.
The filter capacitors are the originals from the 70s, so it would have to be recapped anyway.
What do you guys think? Is it even worth trying to safe an amp in this condition or should I just gut the thing asap and start a DIY project?
I haven't had the time to measure the transformers to confirm that they are OK, but I will get to it shortly.
To be honest, I have a feeling that this amp will be a potential gold mine of trouble.
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