TW Rocket/Callaham chassis

[DustyBadlands]

Hi All, My first TW build was an Express. This Rocket is my second TW build. The chassis is a Callaham EL-84 NOS bought on eBay. Following the KF Rocket lead dress was not going to work for this build. I had to drill some new mounting holes in the chassis to fit the Tone Slut Transformers. I followed the schematic and lay out in the Rocket files and fit it in this chassis. I did check out the Callaham amp photos in the TW clone files to get some idea of how his lay out looked. I went with the orange drop and sprague atom caps. The Mallory's are getting way to expensive. The amp sounds the best plugged straight in without using my attenuator. Dialing in with the guitar volume pot. Slightly distorted and loud as hell! It does have some what of the TW hiss. I didn't play it for to long. I want to get back inside to check the voltage drops and the bias. Here are a few pix. Thanks again for all the help offered on this assume forum. DB

[RJ Guitars]

Awesome build Dusty! It sounds similar to several other Rocket descriptions, although they are not famous for hiss with one less gain stage than the Express and Pool.

You mentioned Toneslut trannies so I assume you did not go with the Dynaco 470? I used a Heyboer 5.2K tranny as did several other guys in the group build and we all found they had an early sweet breakup and yes they are quite loud! The 5.2K tranny seems to add some harmonic color although the guys who used the Dynaco 470 iron seem to get very high volume pristine clean tones... both flavors may actually be very useful.

I used NOS Sprague Atoms on my build and they seem to be excellent. Recently I have heard a few comments roughing them up for both price and quality but I don't have that view myself.

I've used Orange drops on three different Rocket builds now and I am pleased with them. I will probably build the next one with Mallory 150's just to check myself.

Would be great to hear some clips and get some more feedback from you. I am curious if you can tame some of that hiss with a tube swap.

I am also curious what you are using for output tubes. I went with a matched set of Old Stock Saratov's that sound wonderful although I understand that NOS siemen's are the ultimate.

Great job, keep us posted.

rj

[DustyBadlands]

Thanks for the kind words. I am using the DYNACO 470 MOD HTS-8093-1 for the O/T and HTS-5199 P/T from Tone Slut.I haven't ordered the transformers for my second Rocket build yet. Any suggestions on O/T and P/T? DB

V1- NOS Mullard 12AX7
V2- NOS Amperex 6072A
V3- New Mullard 12AX7M-Silver Series

V4-V7 Power Tubes- 6P14P-EV I believe are Russian.I bought them on eBay for $22.00 from the Ukraine.

Rectifier- New Ruby 5AR4
B+1= 309
B+2= 303
B+3= 227
B+4= 199
B+5= 193