1961 fender concert conversion.

[guitician]

You describe cabinet building like you just pull the parts out of your pocket and connect A to B. I've built and covered cabinets. I'm a pretty handy and crafty guy too. It's not easy to do a nice job. In fact it's down right hard or impossible for someone who's never done it before. Add the expense of the lumber, corners, handle, grill cloth, misc. tools and materials for the project and I'm thinking that $305 is a pretty good price. IMHO unless you want the satisfaction of doing it yourself, just enjoy a good project or already have a work space and tools for all the steps it just makes a lot more sense to buy a cabinet.

That head/cab in my avatar was my first cabinet project. I had to borrow a friends table top saw and dado blade set. I went to the local woodcraft store and bought some birch plywood. Then cut it up and made a simple box joint jig and cut the fingers. Router the edges with a roundover bit and filed some more curve to it. It all went pretty easy. Then I covered then both in some Levant I got from a upholstery shop along with the welt beads... maybe spent $50 in materials....time I have a lot of....It's not cheap time though

[Chuck H]

Well, that's always been my take on it too. Time I have, sometimes. I don't usually have extra $$$. I think that's how most people like you and I end up "handy" in the first place. Still... If your first project seemed easy and went well I'm willing to step up and tell you that your experience is rare. Perhaps your special or have alien DNA. But most often first cabinet attemps that start with lumber and and end with tolex or vinyl don't come out all that great. As I said, I'm a pretty handy guy by most opinions. My first cab was "acceptible" and I worked very hard at it.

[jbennett]

A '61 could have a black or brown faceplate according to Teagle and Sprung (FENDER AMPS book).

It's more like Brown and Dark Brown. I have a 61 that has a dark-chocolate brown faceplate and I can see how some might think it was black at first glace. But if you put something black next to it you can tell it's just a dark shade of brown.

Here it looks black... in daylight it looks dark-brown.


but if you look at this photo, compare the dark-brown to the true-black of the weber mini-mass.

[Chuck H]

I've noticed that too. Some REALLY dark browns. Were there two browns??? Some photos from that era are clearly brown. Not a brown that could be mistaken for black. And other photos you can squint at and not be sure if it's brown or black. I've seen the "brown" brown faceplates in person. But never the "black" brown. Thanks for showing it. Maybe there were paint batch mixups and someone mistakenly mixed the old brown paint with the new black paint?

[riz]

I have noticed what I think are two browns, as well. Like, milk chocolate, and dark chocolate. The only black ones I have ever seen, were the white tolex/blackface (blackface CIRCUITRY as well) "tuxedo" models from the transition period of '63-64.

Now, I'm no expert, but I enjoy gear-heading over this kind of trivia!

[Tom Phillips]

I agree that the 1961 panel was a dark brown. It's very hard to tell from photos but, as jbennet said, it's easy to tell the difference between the dark brown and black when they are next to each other in a photo. It's really obvious when you have the real thing in front of you. I also agree that there were inconsistent results between various batches of brown paint back in the day. I've heard from paint shops that brown is a hard color to match and to keep consistent from batch to batch. Slight variations probably did not bother Leo as long as the amps were selling and he probably would not have delayed production to have panels redone or wasted any panels by scrapping them unless they were really bad.
Cheers,
Tom

[MWJB]

Blackface (AB763) concerts had bright switches, anything else is "brown"...even if it's black ;-)

@Olddawg - There were many more circuits than schematics published....lots of transitional models, varying cathode bypass cap values, varying NFB loop ratios & values...6G12A circuits built into 5 preamp tube chassis...Fender weren't quite as set production-wise as in the later BF days. Maybe stock control wasn't so good, they seemed to throw in anything that would do the job in that era (1/4W resistors in the bias circuit, ceramic disc caps for preamp coupling...)...pretty bulletproof amps nevertheless. Concert cabs varied in dimensions ...they had trouble deciding which way up the upper back panel went too. So, in short, I wouldn't get too hung up on being exact...Fender couldn't manage it.

Concert, pro, bandmaster, super, vibrasonic & bandmaster all shared the same chassis. All these but the Super shared the PT with the 100W amps, Super had the tweed bassman PT. Bandmaster heads go for a song on ebay, fit a multi tap PT and you have a Concert/Pro/Bandmaster depending on the cab you mate it to.

[olddawg]

Blackface (AB763) concerts had bright switches, anything else is "brown"...even if it's black ;-)

@Olddawg - There were many more circuits than schematics published....lots of transitional models, varying cathode bypass cap values, varying NFB loop ratios & values...6G12A circuits built into 5 preamp tube chassis...Fender weren't quite as set production-wise as in the later BF days. Maybe stock control wasn't so good, they seemed to throw in anything that would do the job in that era (1/4W resistors in the bias circuit, ceramic disc caps for preamp coupling...)...pretty bulletproof amps nevertheless. Concert cabs varied in dimensions ...they had trouble deciding which way up the upper back panel went too. So, in short, I wouldn't get too hung up on being exact...Fender couldn't manage it.

Concert, pro, bandmaster, super, vibrasonic & bandmaster all shared the same chassis. All these but the Super shared the PT with the 100W amps, Super had the tweed bassman PT. Bandmaster heads go for a song on ebay, fit a multi tap PT and you have a Concert/Pro/Bandmaster depending on the cab you mate it to.

I have a '63 Blonde Tremolux with two original 2x10 cabs. I was always told that it was the same chassis as an early Bandmaster. I have played a brown Concert and it broke up a lot differently than other old Fender amps I have played.

[MWJB]

The Blonde 6G9/A/B tremoluxes all ran much lower voltages than the 6G7/A Bandmaster, you should expect to see ~495vdc on the power tube plates with the old 67233 power transformers. No presence controls on the Tremoluxes, which were also tube rectified. Tremoluxes used a bias vary trem in the 6G9/A/B days, the brown 6G7/A bandmasters used the pitch shift vibrato (as did Concert, Pro, Vibrasonic & Super).

They got more similar when they went to BF AB763 with the bright switches, but again more B+ voltage on the Bandmaster & SS rectification against the Tremoluxes tube rectifier. PT B+ windings were different so it was more than just different rectifiers between the amps.

[Tom Phillips]

...Now, I'm no expert, but I enjoy gear-heading over this kind of trivia!

Here is a bit of trivia. The brown panels were made by silkscreening the white marking on top of the brown painted aluminum. The blackface panels started out coated with a silvery white finish and then the black was silkscreened on the surface. I.e. reverse (or negative) lettering.
Cheers,
Tom

[riz]

Here is a bit of trivia. The brown panels were made by silkscreening the white marking on top of the brown painted aluminum. The blackface panels started out coated with a silvery white finish and then the black was silkscreened on the surface. I.e. reverse (or negative) lettering.
Cheers,
Tom

You made me go check (my '62 Concert and '64 Super Reverb sit next to each other...), and, yep! I knew how the black ones were done, and I had assumed the brown ones were made the same way.

I'm pretty sure most of those brown amps, that shared the chassis and layout, had different output transformers. My Concert and Bandmaster are the "same", but the Concert has a bigger OT, and can potentially put out tons more bass, compared to the Bandmaster.

[Tom Phillips]

...but the Concert has a bigger OT, and can potentially put out tons more bass, compared to the Bandmaster.

Yes. Fender used some bigger iron in the early 60's. Check out the attached photo of the OT in a 1961 Model 6G14-A Showman side by side with a 1964 OT as used in the Showman and Twin Reverb.

[jbennett]

My dark brown panel is done in the negative script printing method of dark brown over reflective white (kind of like license plates).

[Chuck H]

Hmmm... Yup. I think Fender just mixed equal parts brown and black when they couldn't get brown just so they wouldn't waste the old brown paint or production time. Finally switching to black in '63 to avoid continued problems. Black, no doubt, was more available. If president is any indication, this would be typical Fender MO. we could speculate all day without knowing the actual circumstances. But I might wager it was something like this.

[Tom Phillips]

My dark brown panel is done in the negative script printing method of dark brown over reflective white (kind of like license plates).

That's interesting to know. I assume you are referring to the panel on your 1961 Tremolux in the photo you posted earlier. I'll pay more attention as I get brownface amps in my shop. The only brown panel I have now is from an old Bassman head. I've had it for over 40 years and I didn't date code the amp it came from.