Gut and refurb old ss combo

[WhiskeyJack]

What do the wires do to affect things? Like interference and hum or something? Is there a difference with those things you called heater wires?

Yes long wires have the extra risk of more interference, hum, cross talk, oscillation, etc. The longer the wire, the more potential it has for weirdness. High voltage wires run in close proximity to vulnerable signal wires. AC shares wires with DC. It's madness. So what you gotta do as a builder is minimize the potential for clusterfuckery by being really smart and careful with how you route things. Shorter is better....that's what she said.

Heater wires have to be long to reach all of the tube sockets. There's no way around that. And that's why you twist them. Twisting the wires cancels out the magnetic smog radiating out of those AC wires. And even still, you don't want other wires coming in close proximity to those things. Sloppy heater wiring, bad grounds, and poor lead dress (how you route the wiring) are all noise problems in an amp.

That's also why you can/should use shielded wire from the input jack to the first gain stage. That wire is virtually empty. The guitar signal in that wire is very small and weak. Interference can easily enter that wire. Any noise that gets in that wire just gets amplified by each gain stage after it. You can't get the noise out once it's in. So you use shielded wire and ground one end of the shield. The noise gets in the shield and goes straight to ground. The delicate goodness in the wire stays clean.

Thanks for the explanation. That is wild you got that firm of a grip on this stuff. more than clears up my questions. Good luck man. Will be cool to watch this one unfold as well.

[Greg_L]

Thanks for the explanation. That is wild you got that firm of a grip on this stuff. more than clears up my questions. Good luck man. Will be cool to watch this one unfold as well.

Thanks. Well I'm still a n00b myself but I'm getting it little by little.

I know from experience how moving a wire one inch can take an amp from oscillation to perfection.

This amp is gonna take a little while to finish. I'm just getting parts together. But if it all goes to plan, and I don't fuck it up, it's gonna be pretty fucking cool when it's done.

[Greg_L]

Parts are in! This is all the stuff I need to build an early 60s 6G6B Bassman. I've still got some decisions to make on rectification and adjustable bias, but that's not mind bending stuff. I got a blank turret board, so I'll be making my own board. That should be "fun". I didn't want to use a stock type Fender fiberboard. So anyway, I guess I'll be getting started soon. First step is to get the chassis ready. I need to cut and drill a shit ton of holes for the tube sockets and transformers. I also need to make a new front panel. So that's next...

[WhiskeyJack]

Oh shit i forgot about this badboy!! good luck man. Looks deadly.

Is that blue thing in the lower left the turret board you mentioned?

[Greg_L]

Oh shit i forgot about this badboy!! good luck man. Looks deadly.

Is that blue thing in the lower left the turret board you mentioned?

Yeah. I got bags of little turrets I need to stake into place to make all the connections for the board. I'll follow the general Bassman layout with some tweaks for improvement.

[WhiskeyJack]

Oh shit i forgot about this badboy!! good luck man. Looks deadly.

Is that blue thing in the lower left the turret board you mentioned?

Yeah. I got bags of little turrets I need to stake into place to make all the connections for the board. I'll follow the general Bassman layout with some tweaks for improvement.

Slick. Look forward to the progress pics and or videos!!! Your builds are deadly.

[Greg_L]

Slick. Look forward to the progress pics and or videos!!! Your builds are deadly.

Thanks. I'm going balls deep on this one. Tolex on the cab and everything.

[JD01]

Amazing

[Greg_L]

The bummer is that those transformers are extinct now. Covid has killed ClassicTone Transformers. I'm glad I got them way ahead of time. Man they had everything. Great quality too. So sad.

So now it looks like Hammond will be the main DIY and retrofit supplier for transformers.

[WhiskeyJack]

The bummer is that those transformers are extinct now. Covid has killed ClassicTone Transformers. I'm glad I got them way ahead of time. Man they had everything. Great quality too. So sad.

So now it looks like Hammond will be the main DIY and retrofit supplier for transformers.

That blows. Just about anytime i saw anything on here or elsewhere of people doing mods, updates or builds, Classic tones name was always shown or mentioned. RIP Classic Tone.

[Greg_L]

That blows. Just about anytime i saw anything on here or elsewhere of people doing mods, updates or builds, Classic tones name was always shown or mentioned. RIP Classic Tone.

Yeah they were so great.

As soon as word got out that they were going out of business people started buying everything they had. I suspect we'll see them show up on ebay for 30x the usual price.

[WhiskeyJack]

That blows. Just about anytime i saw anything on here or elsewhere of people doing mods, updates or builds, Classic tones name was always shown or mentioned. RIP Classic Tone.

Yeah they were so great.

As soon as word got out that they were going out of business people started buying everything they had. I suspect we'll see them show up on ebay for 30x the usual price.

Investment Strategy 101.

[Lt. Bob]

hey greg ... you seen these?

I'm not suggesting you change them out but personally I'm gonna put these in all my guitars.

Looks like a freakin' great idea .... no more staticky loose fitting plug ins

https://www.stewmac.com/electronics/com ... 20Products

[Greg_L]

hey greg ... you seen these?

I'm not suggesting you change them out but personally I'm gonna put these in all my guitars.

Looks like a freakin' great idea .... no more staticky loose fitting plug ins

https://www.stewmac.com/electronics/com ... 20Products

Ha that's a pretty good idea I guess.

[Greg_L]

I've been deciding on colors and overall layout for this thing. I think I've landed on a blue/black/white color scheme. Since this thing is basically gonna be a Fender Bassman, I think I'm gonna name it the Tender Assman. I'm gonna make my own lettering and stencils to paint the faceplate and chassis. Sparkly blue tolex...like a 70s speedboat. White piping around the grill cloth. Probably white control panel with blue knobs and pilot light. Maybe blue panel with white knobs and white pilot light. Haven't decided yet. The Tender Assman is gonna look nice. I haven't decided on the grillcloth yet either. Not too many options. I think the Marshall style checker would look good with my color choices. Or maybe some kind of salt & pepper thing.

The only circuit tweaks I'm planning are a PPIMV and adjustable negative feedback. I might also do away with the "low" input for each channel since I've never in my life of breathing on this planet used the low input on any amp for anything. Haven't decided on that yet. I have the jacks and it's easy to do so I might just stick with the low inputs but do them vertically like a Marshall. I also might do an fx loop because why the fuck not.

Anyway, time to start mocking and cutting holes in the chassis....

[Lt. Bob]

for grill cloth if you're going with the sparkly blue tolex, maybe that fender cloth with the shiny blue-ish silver threads

[Greg_L]

for grill cloth if you're going with the sparkly blue tolex, maybe that fender cloth with the shiny blue-ish silver threads

Yeah I definitely considered that one but it being actual Fender style kind of put me off. If I could find something similar but not the exact same that'd be good. I'm kind of trying to avoid any visual clues that the amp will be little more than another Fender clone.

[JD01]

The low input thing... I've had an amp with a low input before. I don't think I ever even put a lead in it. What do they actually do?

[Lt. Bob]

for grill cloth if you're going with the sparkly blue tolex, maybe that fender cloth with the shiny blue-ish silver threads

Yeah I definitely considered that one but it being actual Fender style kind of put me off. If I could find something similar but not the exact same that'd be good. I'm kind of trying to avoid any visual clues that the amp will be little more than another Fender clone.

I got that gold stuff from Mojo so maybe they might have something

[Lt. Bob]

The low input thing... I've had an amp with a low input before. I don't think I ever even put a lead in it. What do they actually do?

it's just a lower gain ..... same thing as if you could turn the gain knob even lower than all the way down on one of the higher gain inputs