New kid in town.

[John_H]

Hello Everyone;
I'm John. I googled in yesterday, so I'm brand new to the BB. It seems like a nice crowd in here, and I like the concept.

A few months ago an old interest in electronics re-kindled itself. When I was a kid (early 70's) I was really into amateur radio, so tube theory was drilled into me at a young age.This gave me some background, but it seems I have to re-learn everything that I took for granted when I was 15 anyway."Rust never sleeps"

It all started back in about November when I needed to test some vacuum tubes.The one place that I found that would do it for me wanted to charge me thirty bucks to test the handful of tubes from my old Magnatone 2X12 combo amp.The next weekend I bought an old Triplett tube tester at the flea market for fifteen clams, and after that I was off to the races. Since then I've aquired some more test gear, and repaired several vintage amps, and radios. I truly forgot just how much fun I had working on gear when I was a kid. Enough intro stuff. Here's my latest project.

I bought the amp on ebay. My objective is to build a new guitar rig out of junk. I liked the look of the chassis, and layout so I bought the non working, fuse blowing, as-is amp.I've had my dirty little fingers inside of quite a few 6L6 push/pull amps lately so for familirity I chose this one to build on. I've nicknamed it the ratrod. Upon arrival I determined that the PT was shot.
I bought a junk amp for parts, and it gladly donated it's compatible big black lump of iron, and copper. Without the benefit of a schematic I installed it, new filter caps, and new cathode by-pass caps.....This thing sounds great! I had my fingers crossed not knowing what to expect when I powered it up. There was considerable evidence of dirty little fingers other than my own on the inside. I've got a picture of the guts if anyone wants to see how I worked out the ground scheme.

I plan to do other mods to it, but it's sure cool to hear sound.
current tube compliment; 5U4G, (2) 6L6GC, (2) 6SC7, 6SQ7

[Don Symes]

Nicely done, sir. Welcome to here, and feel free to jump in and contribute.
New voices are always welcome.

And yes, please post all the amplifier porn you care to share.

[Jag]

Welcome John! I'm in a very similar postion to you (former electronics freak from the 70's relearning everything). I've been tinkering with old Fenders, etc. for a couple of years and have learned alot from this crowd. There are a lot of great books out there too.

I've got a very old Bogen with almost the same tube compliment as your ratrod, I've been waiting for the right rainy day to start reworking it. I've been too busy with the plethora of old Fenders and Marshalls I've been lucky to obtain over the last couple of years.

As far as addictions go, this is a great one!

Fantastic support group here too!

[John_H]

Thanks for the welcome guys...Here's the chassis. It's pretty gruesome in places. I need to spend some time cleaning things up.

The original power trans. was shorted. I replaced it with one I pulled from a junk amp that I bought for parts. $5 well spent. The donor amp gave up a terminal strip as well. I added the terminal strip to support the new caps, and get a good ground point that I could tie everything into. Before all of the grounds terminated at the multiple cap. The original PT had a center tap for the heaters. My replacement didn't, so I did an artificial C-tap. So far I'm pretty happy with how it sounds. It hums a bit more than I'd like, but the bias current is a little high. That might have something to do with it, along with all of the crappy solder joints. I didn't have any time to work on it this weekend, but I'll mess with it this week.

I'm editing this because the picture wouldn't link. Go here to see the chassis http://home.earthlink.net/~jhwkns1/photoalbum/

[Regis]

Hi John

Welcome to the forum. Talk about syncronicity, I have a VM 162 just like the one in your picture ( and a Silvertone 1482, as well!) that I was working on converting to a guitar amp over the weekend. It was a fair success, and I have couple of things I still need to do yet. Have you modded yours in any way?

The only schematic I have is pasted inside the bottom of the case that was a bitch to read with my old worn out eyes. I have a list of the things I did but the most difference came from adding a couple of cathode bypass caps.

Regis

[John_H]

Hi John

Welcome to the forum. Talk about syncronicity, I have a VM 162 just like the one in your picture ( and a Silvertone 1482, as well!) that I was working on converting to a guitar amp over the weekend. It was a fair success, and I have couple of things I still need to do yet. Have you modded yours in any way?

The only schematic I have is pasted inside the bottom of the case that was a bitch to read with my old worn out eyes. I have a list of the things I did but the most difference came from adding a couple of cathode bypass caps.

Regis

Wow! cool a VM 162.. There can't be too many of these little amps that have survived. I just recently fixed mine. I replaced filter caps with some of a little higher value, and the by-pass cap. The original V-M 6X4, and 6AQ5 tubes didn't test very well. I replaced them both. I added a fuse also

It sounds pretty good, considering it's about a four watt amp. I've been running my zoom effects processor through it. I haven't recorded with it yet, but I'm anxious to do so. I've been wanting to experiment with re-amping previously recorded clean guitar tracks using different effects patches. I plan to make a small isolation box for it sometime this week and give it a try.

I checked out your webpage... dig your strat.. your really worked on that silvertone. Mines all orig. down to the footswitch, and tubes. It was a gift from a friend who found it stashed away in a house that he bought, so this one I'll leave alone.. I had a similar echoplex once. Those things are cool. I used it as barter when I bought my martin.