First tube amp build: Fender Deluxe AB763 style amp (no reverb).

[Justin Thomas]

Hey Chuck,

Last cab I made & finished that was pine, I tried that. The Black first/Purple second came out nice, but certainly not as pronounced as on Maple. Subtle, but definitely there. Then I "coarse-sprayed" it with lacquer clearcoat. I'm just really lazy, especially when amps take a beating... I'd say try it on a test slab of the same board style as the cab. I think the results would depend on how close the rings are & the cutting pattern. I'll look for pics, if I have any.

I don't poo-poo dyeing pine, even if it's not to the taste of others...

Justin

Edit: seems no pics exist of the finished cabinet... Sorry! I may do another this summer, though.

[mikepukmel]

Huge progress this week. Huge. The grommets arrived, and I installed all of them. Except for 1. And, my son and I drilled the holes into the circuit board for the mounting standoffs. More or less. Didn't have the right size drill bit so th screws don't fit. Have to go to the hardware store today and get the right drill bit.

Anyone have any suggestions for the screws that hold the tube sockets in place? Do you use self tapping machine screws, or do you use nuts and bolts? I was thinking self tapping screws plus a little loctite blue. The metal for the chassis is fairly thick, so not sure if I have to tap the holes.

[mikepukmel]

Yeah, that's a whole other thing. It's a "look". Also popular is to stain hard woods with black stain and then sand it off to uber accentuate the grain. Since pine tends to take stain more extreme in the soft grain and not much at all in the harder grain it could create a similar effect. Something I've done with pine that makes for a more aged look, darkened knots and honey colored grain, is to treat it with lye and then neutralize it before finishing. A trick I learned from an antiques restoration guy. He would do this to wood used for repairs so it would have a similar aged look. I did it to the paneling in someones man cave/bar to give the place an authentic "old bar" look. Worked a treat. Then he ordered a custom amp from me and had me finish the cabinets the same way.

I saw someone 'pickle' a hardwood floor once a long time ago. They took a rag with green paint on it, wiped the green paint on, then fairly soon wiped it off again and hand polished the surface. The green paint stained teh softer area. Then after that dried they put some kind of poly finish. Really cool looking when done! Maybe will try that on a piece of pine scrap wood, or the inside bottom of the cabinet and see how it looks.

[mikepukmel]

Found a good sweepable midrange schematic on redcircuits.com. No printed circuit board, so I stopped to learn Autodesk Eagle (Frickin awesome software!!), figured out how to type in the schematic, and a long opus on how to figure out what components to use, how to use the board layout software, get the board "designed" (which is an ambitious statement on my part), learn to use the CAM processor, validate design and electrical rules on the board, and get quotes on having the board made. After all that:



If anyone is interested, there's a cool place SEEED
https://www.seeedstudio.com/fusion_pcb.html
Check it out if you need a PCB made.

Fun side track, now back to work on the actual amp....

[mikepukmel]

Dumpster diving, found a box of new 14ga x 3 power cords (fourteen gauge!!!!) looks like from some kind of computer server rack, since a bunch of other network cables ,and stuff like that in there. Hope that the cord is thin enough to fit in a strain relief.

[Leo_Gnardo]

Hope that the cord is thin enough to fit in a strain relief.

You'll have to drill & dremel a way big hole to fit. You can find an appropriate strain relief I'm sure at Home Despot. But why put yourself thru the suffering of fitting that way oversize wire "because I got it for free." Plenty of Fenders work perfectly well with 18-3 or 16-3 AC cable that fits the hole without any trouble.

[mikepukmel]

You'll have to drill & dremel a way big hole to fit. You can find an appropriate strain relief I'm sure at Home Despot. But why put yourself thru the suffering of fitting that way oversize wire "because I got it for free." Plenty of Fenders work perfectly well with 18-3 or 16-3 AC cable that fits the hole without any trouble.

Thanks Leo! The first thing I did when I got home was see if the cable fit through the chassis hole with some room to spare. Its pretty tight w/o the strain relief.

I had a 16x3 in a cart someplace, wasn't that expensive, I think 6 or 8 bucks. Yeah, much better than torturing the strain relief hold bigger.

[mikepukmel]

I'll save the 14x3's for the Marshall Major Plus build next year. :O

[loudthud]

The problem on a blackface Fender chassis is that the line cord must make a hard 90 degree turn where it exits the chassis between the back panel of the chassis and the tolex covered back panel of the amp box.

[Justin Thomas]

I just cut off the corner of my back panel to fix that... course, that was my "Assman 100," not my BF Bassman!
Since it's a build, no harm in some literal corner cutting...

Justin

[mikepukmel]

All the resistors are in (thanks everyone great thread on small size resistors), got the chassis, cabinet, eyelet boards, tube sockets, and some of the hardware.

Last two orders, one due tomorrow and one next Tuesday with all the rest of the parts except the speaker.
Found this awesome wire stripper from Cleveland Aircraft Tool:

Automatic Wire Stripper WS39 - Cleaveland Aircraft Tool

A good friend who rewired racing cars has had a couple of these, swears by them.

I have a mediocre soldering iron, it works. Probably use that.
Will need a big Weller to solder the ground wires to the chassis and brass plate. Used not much cheaper than new.

Anyone have any tips on a heat gun for shrink tubing?

[Randall]

Incidentally, should you make more of these, I have a no reverb AB763 Deluxe turret board I got by mistake from Mojo, or watts or someplace that I would sell for cheap.

[mac dillard]

Just to complicate things a little....I would not try to solder the ground wires to the chassis. Bolt with grounding lug and lock/star washers and lock tite. Same with the brass plate behind the pots...run a buss across the pots and ground to it. Some solder the buss to the pots. I don't. Run it along the edge of the board connect one end to the ground lug and just ground to it. Works for me. Question--why did you opt to drop the reverb and keep the tremolo? I built what some call a AB763 lite that is just the normal channel. Heck of a little amp. If one wants reverb or tremolo there are some really good pedals out there. One mod that I would recommend would be to add a Master volume control..i use a butane grill lighter to shrink shrink tubing.

[Leo_Gnardo]

Will need a big Weller to solder the ground wires to the chassis and brass plate.

Skip the Weller guns, get their 80 watt "pencil." I got mine 30 years ago as a castoff, well used from a stained glass artist. It's proven so useful I bought a spare, about $30. But the old beat up one just won't quit! The charm to these, and their 120W and 160W cousins, is the massive tip which transfers lots of heat to the chassis metal. Maybe others have better luck with their 100W to 300W soldering "guns" but me not so much.

Lookee! Wallymart's practically giving them away at $25.26. Dream up something else to buy so you can get free shipping, or pay a little more & order from another vendor. You can find several on Amazon.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Weller-SP...&wl13=&veh=sem

Don't forget to stock up on some proper solder, and don't cheap out. What used to cost a buck a pound, ain't no more. Kester 60/40 .050 diameter is good stuff and will set you back 25-30 bucks for a pound roll these days unless you find a knock down sale somewhere. One fellow tech thought he found a huge bargain "only $4 a pound" then it wouldn't melt . . . he finally read the fine print & was chagrined to find he'd bought 40/60, "the wrong stuff." Ooops.

[The Dude]

...... and if you're going to solder directly to the chassis or brass plate, get some flux paste. I little extra flux makes a big difference in getting the solder to "take".