Express Ingrid for sale on Ebay

[martins3325]

Not mine of course...just thought id post as it has some gut shots in he lising

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Train-Wreck-Exp ... 2ebe5cc7cd

[roberto]

Hi, we talked about it here:
https://tubeamparchive.com/viewtopic.php?t=18134

[geetarpicker]

Rare for one to show up on ebay! I've seen about one every 3-4 years, and most of them later change hands in a private transaction outside of the bay... Cool to see the gut shot pics, especially since it's a later model which there seem to be less pics of out there. I find all the silicone a little odd, I've never seen that in a wreck though I have seen some near invisible use of super glue to hold the wires in place. Also note Ken started to use PEC pots in the later amps but he apparently still had some of the earlier types for the 1megs. The original 1 megs in these had a very smooth slow taper, which helped quite a bit to make the volume come on much slower than typical. Too bad that higher value audio taper pots are getting near impossible to find with great slow rising tapers.

[ampmike]

Im kinda surprised it is there as well.40K isnt that much to guys like Paisley,Keith Urban and hundreds more celebrities.You would think a lot of these guys would want one even just for collecting or keeping in there homes.I would love to play a real TW amp one day

[redshark]

Interesting things to see in the gut shots. This one has an input resistor (V1,pin7), I wonder what the value is, (10k, 15k or maybe 33k?) . Also probably a 820ohms in V1,pin2 and the parallel to C8, ceramic 0.0022 a la "Trudy", now I see why this amp sounds so fat.

Dan Boul from 65 amps recorded a video playing this amp that you guys can see now on youtube


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NORW6kkRsc

[amplifiednation]

That is awesome! Great find. Isn't the lettering different on this too? The orange electrolytics look cool. The note from Ken is a very nice touch to that amp.

[redshark]

I'm surprised nobody has made any comments on the "diferences" between this amp and Francesca that I mentioned in my last post.

[funkmeblue]

also the nfb resistor is mounted on the board.....I wonder what value the volume pot is. ken said he liked mallory, cde, and sprague electrolytic caps.....here we see the cde and sprague....newer style vector board like alessandro uses....maybe it's not ken built?

[redshark]

You are right funkmeblue. I definitely didn't notice that nfb resistor on the board until you mentioned it. Cool!!

[geetarpicker]

I've definately seen later wrecks with that board material. My Liverpool had that board, and Ken apparently switched board material in the early 90s when the brown stuff and the flea clips became hard to source.

[funkmeblue]

that board is vector board and is still produced today. The white board I seen like in reject 90 is different stuff all together.....hole spacing is different

[ampmike]

I know this should be somewhere on TAG but what are the total number of wrecks that KF built and how many of each.It really is amazing the status his work reached.I live really close to Colonia NJ but really had not known about them.I wonder what will be next if any on the list of great amps.In other words is there another KF rising among the ranks out there.Mike

[Reeltarded]

Yes. It's you.

Don't eff it up.

[ampmike]

Really,Dang!!!Thanks Bro.Have a great weekend,Mikey

[geetarpicker]

I know this should be somewhere on TAG but what are the total number of wrecks that KF built and how many of each.It really is amazing the status his work reached.I live really close to Colonia NJ but really had not known about them.I wonder what will be next if any on the list of great amps.In other words is there another KF rising among the ranks out there.Mike

Ken was apparently superstitous about counting his list of amps on his list of owners that he kept, I bet JM knows the answer and probably has Ken's log book... Ken personally said he estimated he built about 100 amps in total, I think there are 6-7 Rockets, perhaps a Tremrocket or two, a songwriter or two, and the rest being Express and Liverpools. My guess is about 50 Express amps, and 40 Liverpools? Maybe others know more...

It may be hard for any amp builder these days to build the status Ken had. He was one of the first. When I heard about Trainwrecks in the late 80s at that time I had only heard of three hand build amps out there. Dumble, Trainwreck, and Kendrick and that was it. I guess Mesa Boogies almost counted but they were already becoming a common item almost mainstream by then. Dumbles were way expensive and you had to pay ALL up front and it seemed questionable if you would actually ever get one. Kendricks were all tweed Fender repros. Ken didn't take any money up front, seemed like a straight up guy so the choice was easy plus his amps were great! Point is, Ken was into all this way before it was mainstream, and alot of his reputation came from years of amp repair and mods even before he started building amps. Someone may obtain similar status maybe, but Ken was one of the true first so that is hard to beat.