Safety First – For European Owners of Imported Vintage Guitar Amps from North America I was having an email discussion with a friend in the USA who had an original Blackface Fender Super Reverb amp. So it is obviously pre 1969. Â Ams of this era oonly have a live and neutral connection and no earth ( ground) connected on the powerline. There is a switch on the back of the amp which optimises the ground […]
A friend brought me his Fender Hot Rod Deluxe amp. The issue was that one of the output valves which are 6L6’s was glowing like an electric fire. Â See the markings have brown on one of the output valve. Note the amateurish re-branding by Fender of Sovtek 5881 Â valves as 6L6GC’s ! The Hot Rod deluxe amp is a nice sounding amp but in my opinion Fender were trying to make a full featured amp
Repairing a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe amp Mk 1 USA made Read More »
Resistor Drift and Noise While a lot of people like carbon composition resistors in their vintage amp, there is one issue you need to watch out for. This is especially true in amps where the valves hang upside down as in the  original black-face and silver-face Fender amps. In these amps the heat goes upwards and straight into the components.  The output valves are the hottest lace in the amp. The result is that the
One of the most common issue I see with solid state amps and re-issue valve amps is dry solder joints. Solder dry joints are made during the manufacturing process when a component is not correctly soldered and the flux in the solder is possibly holding the board and the component in contact or too low a temperature used on the joint. Good quality inspection processes during manufacture can eliminate this kind of problem. However, these
Never Believe an amp is Beyond Repair A number of years ago, I was once GIVEN a 1960’s top boost Vox AC30. A pint of beer had been sitting on the amp at a gig ( a No-no!). the guitarist knocked it over when he turned to adjust the amp settings. Whoosh! the beer was knocked over and poured into the amp air vents. There was  bang and the amp died. he took it to
I started on this blog back in 2015 and this was my first experience writing a blog. I dont claim to be a world expert on valve ( tube ) guitar amps, but…. I thought it would be good to write about my experiences on restoring repairing early guitar amps. I look forward to reading your comments and feedback. I have repaired valve amps since the 1960’s and I am an electronics engineer and try to play