new builder intro and amp kits

[Attenuator]

hello to all in this forum.I have been looking into this subject for a little while .My back ground is professional vintage sports car restoration .So Im a professional problem solver. I have read posts on best kit and the like from newbies and I have taught myself many subjects.I build strats and vintage cafe racer motorcycles as well.

I think the absolute beginner builder should take a cheap epiphone valve junior or black heart and mod it for all they can afford.So they get to see an amp together and mod the sections so they can see what the parts do and how they relate. At these prices you have a cool amp you can resell and learned alot.

That base under your belt then get a small watt head kit or small combo.
Build that mission amps have good price for a quality kit all the support you can get right here and have a very well built amp you would not want to sell.

[Omn]

Hello to all in this forum, and Attenuator!
New one here too. So I thought I could slide in a response together with an introduction.

My first build was an 18watt kit from GDS. Background was just putting together guitars. Changing pickups. Setting up guitars. And some minor work on HiFi-speakers. But what I got from GDS (instructions and forum) was more than enough to put together a nice amp.
Next, and to date last, was a Metro Plexi 12000 100watter. That model is sold without instructions but following instructions on other plexis, plus enormous help from their forum was good enough for a lovely amp.
So it can be done; green as I was, putting together whatever I like. That said, books and the net - without them I would be helpless. There are great books on amp-building. One I found here in fact.

Anyway; good luck on your exploration! It is a thrill...

[hasserl]

My start was working with cheap low powered vintage tube amps, there are a lot of these out there but they climbed pretty high in value due to stupid eBay practices. But that may be correcting itself due to the slow economy, not sure if people can still ask for ridiculous prices for cheap low powered amps from the 60's. In any case, IMO these make for a fantastic learning path. Typically there are no schematics available for these amps, so one must trace out the circuits themselves and draw their own schematic. This is a very beneficial excersize. You start at one end of the power supply and work your way thru the entire power supply, then you start at the input and trace out the entire signal path. When you encounter a component you don't know what it is or how it functions you stop and study it until you do (lot's of free info available on the web, google is your friend). By the time you get the schematic drawn out you'll have a very good basic understanding of how amps in general operate, and a great understanding of this particular amp. After you've got the schematic drawn out then you refurbish the amp replacing old electrolytic caps and resistors that have drifted out of specs, failed or worn out parts like switches, caps, etc. In the end you get a nice refurbished vintage amp and a great education about amp design and component layout. Do a couple of these and you'll learn much more than just assembling a kit.

Another great path is taking old tube PA amps and turning them into guitar amps. Again, trace out the schematic, replace parts as needed, and tune the amp to work with guitar. This is a great experience for learning how to tweak a circuit to modify its sound and response.

After that building an amp is a piece of cake, except now you get the added benefit of learing to troubleshoot new amp bugs.

Anyway, that's my advice, start with repairs and refurbishing, learn how to troubleshoot and use diagnostic tools, then move to building.