What would you do?

[Leo_Gnardo]

Look at it as a way to improve your grounding.

I've seen Randall's photos of his rebuild of a RI Deluxe Reverb & the grounding is exquisite. Would be hard to improve on that!

[Smokebreak]

I'm sure it is. That was merely my lame attempt at being cheeky. No disrespect intended. Just trying to look for positive aspects of a possible rebuild.

[Structo]

No prob dude.
Many times subtle sarcasm doesn't translate well.

[Randall]

If you are branding production amps, I imagine you'll need to build a couple from scratch, and not kits from...who?

I am not building production amps. I build for myself, and for area players who want a specific thing. I am into a B-15 build that I had the chassis fabricated and plated blue zinc, and I will use face plates on that one. But in this case it is not what I want.

These two 5E3s are for a unique case where two customers want identical amps built side by side. Don't ask me why. They both tried out the one I built for myself, and want exactly that amp. So I have a very specific task to fulfill.

[Firestorm]

Bite the bullet, friend. Where there's two, there are four more.

[Randall]

Perhaps, but we don't really know. Despite maybe being too slow on the uptake, the vendor is acting in good faith, and wants to clear this up. I'm sure we can all appreciate that. Maybe I DID get the only two bad ones. Hard to swallow, but not impossible. Everything takes about a week with the mail, so this will take time.

When I get replacements I will do my own tests. If they pass I will re-chassis and try to put all this inconvenience in the past. If not, then I'd have to come clean I suppose. I'm hoping for the former.

[Randall]

I received two replacements, and tried to get the lettering to fail right out of the box. I am happy to report that everything appears to be fine. The vendor tells me they are nearly finished checking their stock, and they still have not been able to replicate my situation. So with that, I would not be afraid to purchase more. I would just be sure to check them before I started building in them.