VHT Special 6 Ultra Valve Amp I am currently working on a VHT Special 6 Ultra Amp. This is an amp head and this one has a 1 x 12 Goodmans greenback equipped close backed cabinet. This amp is only 5 watts. It makes a nice little practice/ bedroom/ studio amp where you can sound as if you playing through a fully cranked up Marshall 200 watt stack..great fun. These amps are very competitively priced […]
Restoring a Fender deluxe reverb Part 2 Here is the next step in restoring the amp. On the underside of the chassis is the main board where the components are mounted. This is called the turret board. On my unit this board was covered in sticky nicotine tar and also it had mould on it ! I found the best way to clean this off was to use a Foam Cleanser that is used for
Fender Deluxe Reverb Electronic Restoration I mentioned in an earlier post that I restored my 1971 Fender Deluxe Silver face Reverb’s electronics. Over the next few posts I am going to let you see how I did it. I hope this is useful information for you. The deluxe reverb, Twin reverb, Super reverb all have nearly the same design so what I am saying is true of all of these lovely amps. it also applies
On the old vintage Fender amps as I mentioned earlier there is no earth and only a two pin plug which should be replaced with a cable that supplies a ground to the metal chassis. Also on the back of valve ( tube ) vintage fender amps that says ground. What this switch does is switch a 0.01uF on some models or a 0.047uF , capacitor and connect it either to the live or
More on Watching out for Imported Vintage Blackface Silverface Amps Read More »
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. 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. See the markings have brown on one of the output valve. Note the amateurish re-branding by Fender of Sovtek 5881 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
