Newbie Amp Builder - Need Some Beginner Tips

[martin manning]

This is your quote, Gary, and bears repeating: "Its like that Operation game but if you touch the sides YOUR nose lights up."

[gary sanders]

I dont have a lot of building experience but I can stand behind for that quote!

Just learning about how the tube works is fascinating its self.Especially if you break one....like someone just recently did ...take it apart and just check out the parts and think of what really goes on in there.Its pretty amazing from the point of view of physics,all that stuff smaller than the eye can see bouncing from one piece of metal to another.When you start understanding how the tube works THEN you really get in to it and can take it a few steps further.I wish I had time to scan this old text book I have and put on here.its a good one from the early 60s.I also have an old one on reading schematic diagrams.Maybe one rainy day I will do that.

[Jack Hester]

Nice layout! Can we see more?

Unfortunately, I'm not good these days of photo-documenting my work. And, this amp is in the hands of a good friend who will give it a proper workout. Maybe I can snap a picture, when it comes home. I'm not a woodworker, so I have no cab for it. Just a chassis for table top. This may be typical of my builds for the time being.

Here is a drawing of the chassis layout for the Champ, as completed, though the the input/output placement is not as-built. It is shown for correct wiring, only. Also note, the effects loop was added to this drawing later, making it slightly different from the as-built board drawing. I raised the lead between C3 and volume pot R6, to wire it in (on the actual build). I then corrected the drawing for to reflect how it should be built.

Also, a drawing of the Tremolo section of the '55 and later Gibson GA-40 amp. I haven't built this one yet. But, I do have 90% of the components on hand. This layout can be used as a stand-alone pre-amp with Tremolo, to feed the power amp side of the effects loop. Or, connected to both jacks for an additional gain stage, on a build such as the Champ. Or, as a headphone amp. Don't know about that one, but can't see any reason why it wouldn't work.

The Champ I built is clean all the way to full volume, so it will make an excellent test for tube effects.

Everything I'm building is just an experiment for me to prove that I can build correctly from a schematic. I have no actual vintage working amps (like these) to compare sound quality. So far, I've only had the satisfaction that they work.

The way I see it, as long as I'm experimenting, building in this manner enables me to mix and match effects and amps in any manner that I choose.

Jack

[Jack Hester]

Here is another effect that I plan to build in the near future. It's the Dorf Universal Vibrato, taken from a 1954 issue of Radio & Television News that I have. I drew this one with individual caps, rather than the canned caps that he used in his article. Mainly because I want to keep the components as individuals, for ease in my tracking signals. Again, my builds do, and will, look like schematics on the turrets boards.

Though I haven't shown it in my drawings, any signal wiring that runs farther than an inch is shielded wire, with the shield being tied to the chassis.

And if you notice, my drawings and builds will take up quite a bit of real estate, as far as chassis size. I'm not going for compactness at this point. I'm keeping them nice and spread out for ease in seeing, and troubleshooting. When I put the Champ board together and tested it on top of the work bench (no chassis), for some reason I only had a very weak signal coming out. Put the rubber gloves on and using a piece of wooden dowel (some use chopsticks), I found an unsoldered coupling capacitor to the power amp. Point is, I was able to do so without any drawing, as the layout was like a drawing.

Jack

[Structo]

Just learning about how the tube works is fascinating its self.Especially if you break one....like someone just recently did ...take it apart and just check out the parts and think of what really goes on in there.Its pretty amazing from the point of view of physics,all that stuff smaller than the eye can see bouncing from one piece of metal to another.When you start understanding how the tube works THEN you really get in to it and can take it a few steps further.I wish I had time to scan this old text book I have and put on here.its a good one from the early 60s.I also have an old one on reading schematic diagrams.Maybe one rainy day I will do that.

Just a word of caution here.
There are ingredients in tube manufacturing that may pose a health risk to get it on your skin and or to breathe.

Not real sure how unhealthy it is but lets just say that the current manufacturing codes in the USA pretty much preclude any tubes to be mass produced here in the states.

Here is an old RCA advertisement listing some of the ingredients.

Just a heads up, FYI type thing.

[diagrammatiks]

Here is another effect that I plan to build in the near future. It's the Dorf Universal Vibrato, taken from a 1954 issue of Radio & Television News that I have. I drew this one with individual caps, rather than the canned caps that he used in his article. Mainly because I want to keep the components as individuals, for ease in my tracking signals. Again, my builds do, and will, look like schematics on the turrets boards.

Though I haven't shown it in my drawings, any signal wiring that runs farther than an inch is shielded wire, with the shield being tied to the chassis.

And if you notice, my drawings and builds will take up quite a bit of real estate, as far as chassis size. I'm not going for compactness at this point. I'm keeping them nice and spread out for ease in seeing, and troubleshooting. When I put the Champ board together and tested it on top of the work bench (no chassis), for some reason I only had a very weak signal coming out. Put the rubber gloves on and using a piece of wooden dowel (some use chopsticks), I found an unsoldered coupling capacitor to the power amp. Point is, I was able to do so without any drawing, as the layout was like a drawing.

Jack

nice. I've been doing a lot of research into that circuit.

trying to convert it to the 12a series and modernizing it a bit.

how'd your 6x version end up sounding?

like your layouts a lot too. i agree that they should be based on engineering and not set in stone layouts.

[Jack Hester]

I've been doing a lot of research into that circuit.

trying to convert it to the 12a series and modernizing it a bit.

how'd your 6x version end up sounding?

Haven't built the vibrato, yet. I'm just now getting some normal hours to spend catching up from much overtime during the Spring. I will probably cut out the turret board and install the turrets, sometime in the next couple of weeks. Thinking of trying some Edcor transformers and choke, on this build. Just to compare with the Hammonds that I regularly use.

Jack

[diagrammatiks]

I've been doing a lot of research into that circuit.

trying to convert it to the 12a series and modernizing it a bit.

how'd your 6x version end up sounding?

Haven't built the vibrato, yet. I'm just now getting some normal hours to spend catching up from much overtime during the Spring. I will probably cut out the turret board and install the turrets, sometime in the next couple of weeks. Thinking of trying some Edcor transformers and choke, on this build. Just to compare with the Hammonds that I regularly use.

Jack

nice. the only problem is the number of tubes it takes just for that one effect. I'm trying to scale it down since it's the beginning of a vco circuit necessary for all the other modulations.

edcors are really great.

[Jack Hester]

nice. the only problem is the number of tubes it takes just for that one effect. I'm trying to scale it down since it's the beginning of a vco circuit necessary for all the other modulations.

Fortunately, I have a fairly good stockpile of tubes, and all the octals needed for this build. You're right. There surely is a bunch of tubes in this effect. Good thing my plans are to make it a tabletop, no-cab effect. Some serious heat will come from this one.

Jack

[sendoushi]

Hi there,
I'm also newbie. I have not much of an experience on electronics. Still asking to myself how things work and stuff.
I've been reading the book Make: Electronics (now i'm not reading because I don't have the components they ask, yet).
Already done a midi controller, now i'm wondering about guitar pedals but my final objective, as obvious, is a tube amp.
What are your advices on these matters? Where should I start?

By the way, I don't have much money ehehe.

[surfsup]

Here is an old RCA advertisement listing some of the ingredients.

The good 'ol days....when they actually told you what was in the products you buy.

today, take any "ingredients list" and you can add about 1000 chemical products to that list that the FDA doesn't make the food company put on the package.