The making of an eyelet board...

[galaxiex]

So here we go...
This will eventually become a conversion on a little amp I have, that has a pcb circuit board.

Here's the fiberboard and eyelets.



Holes punched, not drilled.



Business end.





Place eyelets in holes...



Tape to hold in place, now off to the eyelet press.



Dri...err... I mean, eyelet press.

[galaxiex]

oops, it's easy to split the eyelets, less pressure please.




Done

[Bill Moore]

Looks good!
I prefer turrets, and generally use Garolite for the board, so I drill the holes. My friend Pete made some tools for me to stake the turrets. (not pretty, but functional). My "press" is similar to yours!

[galaxiex]

Thanks Bill!

Ya, I can see how it might be difficult to use a punch on those boards.

My plan is to build something "Fenderish" looking, so I went with the eyelets and fiber board.
I know the circuit can't tell the difference.
This is my first attempt at this type of build, (I've done home etched pcb's before).
Also have worked on a few eyelet type amps, Fender, Traynor, etc, and like the ease of modding them.
Never worked on a turret board type so nothing to compare.

[galaxiex]

So that first board was a test since I have never worked with this stuff before.

Here's the final version I will be using to convert my Blues Junior to hand wired.
Started populating the board...



To get to this point the board went thru about 2 dozen iterations.
I added a tube so it will have tube driven reverb.
Here it is a little farther along. Still waiting for some parts...



Edit; Hummm, I was going to edit the first post to change the title to include "For Blues Junior Conversion"...
but I see that it times out for editing.
Did not know that... as some other forums I am on allow you to edit posts basically forever.
Oh well, if some kind mod sees this maybe they can change the title for me?

[galaxiex]

A few more pics.







It's getting there...

[galaxiex]

Finally got this wired up.
Not the neatest wiring job, probably going to howl like a Banshee.

Smoke test next!

[The Dude]

Looks good to me. Good luck with the smoke test!

[galaxiex]

Looks good to me. Good luck with the smoke test!

Thanks!

Smoke test went well.
Plugged in my lamp limiter, no tubes, checked voltages, all seemed ok. B+ 355
Installed tubes, again lamp limiter, still no smoke.

Took it off the limiter... annnnnd.... Ta freakin Da!

Tweaked the bias (I installed 1 ohm cathode resistors) for about 28ma.

Worked way better than I expected.
Very little noise, (back shield panel still not on, amp on bench).
A little hissy but not bad, certainly no worse than my stock 1978 SFDR.

I have a hum balance control on the heater string, tweaked for least hum.

Played it for 1/2 hour, sounds great to me, considering this is my very first build of anything like this...

I'm Stoked!

Reverb is incredible, absolutely cavernous, too much even, I think it's the med decay Belton tank, I'll get a short delay tank and see.

Happy, Happy, Happy,

[Greg_L]

Thanks!

Smoke test went well.
Plugged in my lamp limiter, no tubes, checked voltages, all seemed ok. B+ 355
Installed tubes, again lamp limiter, still no smoke.

Took it off the limiter... annnnnd.... Ta freakin Da!

Tweaked the bias (I installed 1 ohm cathode resistors) for about 28ma.

Worked way better than I expected.
Very little noise, (back shield panel still not on, amp on bench).
A little hissy but not bad, certainly no worse than my stock 1978 SFDR.

I have a hum balance control on the heater string, tweaked for least hum.

Played it for 1/2 hour, sounds great to me, considering this is my very first build of anything like this...

I'm Stoked!

Reverb is incredible, absolutely cavernous, too much even, I think it's the med decay Belton tank, I'll get a short delay tank and see.

Happy, Happy, Happy,

Awesome! Looks great!

[galaxiex]

Thanks Greg!

[galaxiex]

Here it is back in the box.









I need to make a new back panel for it.

[dmartn149]

this is my very first build of anything like this...

WOW looks really neat and tidy. Nothing I work on ever looks that good.

[J M Fahey]

Congratulations

The first "musical instrument amplifier dedicated" tool I bought back in 1969 was a bench eyelet press "to make boards like those on Fender amps" .
It still works flawlessly 49 years later, have made thousands of boards , even used it for my early SS amps and even today use it regularly for quick projects such as speaker crossovers, simple supplies and such.
Itīs a twist type, similar to this one:

Still saves my bacon often.

[galaxiex]

WOW looks really neat and tidy. Nothing I work on ever looks that good.

Thanks!.... but full disclosure...

There is quite a bit of wiring on the back of the eyelet board...



I thought to make the top side wiring less "busy"
So what you see there is mostly power and grounds and a little bias wiring.

I'm not sure if you're "supposed to" do this... or not...
Never seen it done before so IDK.

I'm sure this will come back to bite me in the a**....

Indeed it already has...

I mounted the eyelet board with spacers above the insulating card...
and with the volume and bass turned up the eyelet card "buzzes" with the low E string.
Had to shove some foam in there to stop the buzz.

OR... a short or broken wire under there will cause no end of grief... I'm sure...