Success

[Colossal]

Dave (colossal) does that mean I should pack that Express chassis up and send it?

No man you keep it for your next one, but thanks! I'll probably use one of Ken's chassis but with a non-traditional format. I am considering a design where the three preamp tubes are lined up in front of the chassis similar to how the SLO100s are laid out where there is an extremely short signal path with a very minimum of wiring. Yes, I know, that smacks of heresy and high treason. I'm not sure about that though and need to model it first to see how it looks and would work out.

[M Fowler]

Weber has a chassis like that for sale its smaller and the one I used for my Matchless Lightning build.

I will make some more Trainwrecks then especially if I get lucky on a Stancor PT and OT.

[ampmike]

Hey guys,The new job was horible,I quit today,came home and spent the whole day soldering the express board,It was a great day,inspite of having no job again Mikey

[Big Jim]

Hey Mikey,
No job is worth losing sleep over. I'm sure you made the right decision. It sounds like everything went well for you today with your build. You are kind of building the sister amp to mine.....you are going to like it! I will give you a call tommorrow!
Jim

[M Fowler]

Hey Mike what went wrong with that new job your were telling me about?

Mark

[RJ Guitars]

Big Jim,

It's way cool to hear a success story... especially this early in an Express build. Maybe you can write the book for us?

Waiting with only mild anxiety for your final build photos, a look at the progress of the new cabinet, and of course as always - sound clips.

Good work, you've got a great story to tell - you made an Express build sound routine...

rj

[RJ Guitars]

Hey guys,The new job was horible,I quit today,came home and spent the whole day soldering the express board,It was a great day,inspite of having no job again Mikey

Hey Mikey, I keep waiting for the day when I can quit work and go home and solder... if I could just get my wife to take on a 2nd job I know we could be living the dream... well one of us would be! Anyway, for the unpleasant part of it, you have my compassion but for the freedom to do it, you have my envy!

You should have a box headed your way with the final build parts - looking forward to yet another new wreck to learn something from.

rj

[WhopperPlate]

Hey Mikey, I keep waiting for the day when I can quit work and go home and solder... if I could just get my wife to take on a 2nd job I know we could be living the dream... well one of us would be!

rj

That's too funny RJ!

[Big Jim]

Big Jim,

It's way cool to hear a success story... especially this early in an Express build. Maybe you can write the book for us?

Waiting with only mild anxiety for your final build photos, a look at the progress of the new cabinet, and of course as always - sound clips.

Good work, you've got a great story to tell - you made an Express build sound routine...

rj

It's not exactly like that rj, I've got some tweaking to do. I will say that with help from the good people on this forum and Rons build guide, you can get pretty close. I've also got some online buddies that don't frequent this forum that urged me on and provided advice on components etc. I think soem of the pros on here would find that my amp is far from being where it should be. But to my untrained ear it sounds fantastic. Thanks again for hooking me and the guys up with some really great stuff to do these builds!
Jim

[Big Jim]

I hope I didn't speak too soon....I've been busy building my head cab and haven't been playing the Express for the last few days. Let me start by saying that this amp is a rock machine. It sounds amazing. But I noticed today that after about 10 min. of semi-hard playing I was hearing a crackling, kind of sizzling sound when I would hit the low open strings. This noise was not present at first. I took a 3-4 hour break and tried it out again and the same exact thing happened. Has anyone experienced this before? Does it sound like a bad tube? Cold solder joint? Im open for suggestions. Thanks, Jim

[redshark]

Sounds like a cold solder joint....
I finished mine in last december....once the components start breaking in and you get used to the sound you are going to notice things, and you'll start tweaking....
Mine took 2 weeks to build, I though I had success too but I'm still tweaking....it will take a while until you are completely satisfied...

[Big Jim]

Redshark,
I was kind of leaning towards a cold joint myself. Especially since Tom spotted one earlier in the build on one of my pics. I'll dig around with a magnifying glass and a chopstick till I find the sucker. I may however try another set of tubes first just to rule that out. Jim

[WhopperPlate]

Jim,

It's likely not the tubes I'm afraid; sounds similar to my issues. Can't hurt to try though if you want.

Charlie

[Big Jim]

Tubes weren't the culprit... At least the power tubes. I kind of expected that. I will take a look around tommorrow and see what I can find out. There can't be too much wrong with this thing because when it isn't making the noise this amp is just absolutely fantastic... I mean KILLING TONE. Hopefully I will figure it out soon because I'm jonesing to play this amp bad.
Jim

[Big Jim]

Well....poked around in the amp today. I found a couple of suspicious looking solder joints. After reflowing those, the sizzling sound did not arise until about 25 min. of playing. And it was being set off at a different spot on the neck. Interesting....I've never had this kind of issue with an amp before. I guess the space in the cold joint (wherever it may be hiding) expands as the amp gets good and warm and then the contact becomes intermittent. Does anyone have another idea what could be causing this? It sounds like a crackling, sizzling sound exacerbated by certain notes on the guitar. Otherwise the amp sounds fantastic. Has anyone had a problem like this? Could it be something other than a cold joint? Suggestions?
Jim