blank eyelet board material

[cminor9]

As for the waste of money im curious as to how one would save money, could you elaborate on the point you were trying to make?

Not answering for him, but I took Bruce to mean that turrets are more costly than normal size eyelets (not 3/16" eyelets, which are crazy big). I just bought some turrets for about 15 cents a turret. Eyelets would have cost less than half that.

That said, turrets are easier for me to use and allow for cleaner looking layouts. If you aren't mass producing amps, you probably aren't gonna sweat that little bit of cost. What's $2 saved on a $600 project? If you are building kits like Bruce is, then you have to compete with people who might like to source the parts themselves and other kit makers who might use lower quality parts. It seems like Bruce is able to provide a high quality product at a good price point, and to do that you've gotta cut in areas that don't affect the overall quality of the build. A businessman has to look at things a bit differently than a simple hobbyist would, even if that businessman is also a hobbyist.

[Bruce / Mission Amps]

Im confused by your comment, especially seeing as you run an amp building website. If one wants to build any amp that is not a 5e3, a 5f1, or a 18 watt marshall it becomes incredibly difficult to find a premade board. Not to mention I bought the 2 boards of garolite for 30$ and turrets are cheap (to clear up confusion Wittgenstein and I build amps together). So in the end i can make like 6 turret boards for the cost of buying 2 and i can make any amp I want instead of building the same amps everyone always builds. As for the waste of money im curious as to how one would save money, could you elaborate on the point you were trying to make?

With respect to home shop use and/or casual project amp builders vs a business purchase, you can buy eyelets for 1-2 cents each in any large 1000 to 10,000 pc quantity.
I think Mouser use to sell them at basic retail for around 5 or 6 cents each.
They are very easy to install and crimp over from the other side of a 1/16" thick board with a cheap nail set and it is not very hard to get three 20g wires in a 1/8" dia eyelet and up to 5-6 22g-20g wires in the next size up.
3/16" eyelets are really big and more often used in the tarp, canvas, shoe and leather businesses, requiring a lot of solder to fill up.
Garolite G10-Fr4 is relatively inexpensive, pre cut in any dimension you want from vendors such as McMaster-Carr.
However, I buy my board materials in large, 4'x8' sheets and have them cut here locally on a large platform laser cutting machine, not from McMaster-Carr.
Hobby vs business... OK I concede that, I have built and supplied over 1,450 amps over the many many years I've been doing this and yes, that is thousands and thousands of eyelets and lots of square feet of board material.

But, if some of you find turrets easier to work with, then I would continue to do so.

They look nice when done well, but for novice builders, I think turrets are harder to work with and I've seen seem some really nasty examples of novice turret installation.
They cost a little more money and you need a thicker, more costly board to work with in order to stake them in properly.
I guess the bottom line is, I really don't find a serious advantage in turrets over eyelets

[UniPlank84's]

AES/tubesandmore also has vulcanized fibreboard for Fender eyelet boards. Have to dig on the site to find it as sometimes their items are in other/wrong sections- the search engine will pull it up.

I'm in the simple approach camp and 1/8" G10 seems way overkill for a set circuit build of a proven design. But if making a amp that will be infinitly modded the turrets and heavy board are great. I have a homemade with copper boat nails and some are loose now from so many resolders.

[chuckb]

I'm was wondering how you make the templates? Is there a computer program that you use to produce the correct scale etc? Or do you basically draw it by hand. Is there a site that offers templates for the more common amp types?

Chuck.

[J M Fahey]

I would draw them by hand.
PC drawing is essential for PCB work because you must not only "make a nice drawing" of the tracks, with which they will actually be etched later, but also you can infinitely edit them later, much better than pencil and rubber, but on eyelet (or turret) boards, you are only making the layout, but the actual wiring is made out of real wires, not tracks, just showing where "from/to" they go is enough.
Of course, if you want to publish it or whatever, and cause a good impression, any CAD package will do.
I have seen quite nice layout drawings posted, not sure if somebody made a dedicated CAD program or simply offered a pack of specific symbols to be used with, say, AutoCad or Corel.
google TinyCad, I seem to remember somebody used it with good results.
May be wrong, of course.

PS: as of boards and eyelets, I buy "Pertinax" type phenolic boards, available at electric supply houses , I think it's used to build or mount custom electrical panels, they sell it in 3' by 4' size for cheap.
Also have used 1/8" eyelets from the very beginning (late 60's), loving them so much that even my first SS amps (early 70's) were built PTP on eyelet boards.
Even ones with Op Amp preamps !!!!
I used round metallic case uA741's , no kidding.
Buy 1/8" eyelets in 1000 unit bags or 5000 boxes for peanuts, use them for everything : riveting aluminum sheet to build up heatsinks, attaching terminal strips to speaker frames, ground terminals to (aluminum) chassis, riveted straight to speaker cones as solder terminals for the voice coil to flexible wires union (which makes the latter one easily replaced when cracked broken), attaching simpler parts to build complex cgasis, you name it.
Even to repair my oversized belts or used by my (then) little daughter to make "jewels" out of rivets and transformer wire.
Real useful stuff.

[chuckb]

I have used boards with eyelets and turrets, but I purchased them online already assembled. I want to try and do this myself for future builds. I guess I'll search for the materials locally and see what I can come up with.So you suggest 1/8' eyelets? I'm going to give this a go for my next build(Matchless DC-30 clone) and see how it goes. Thanks for your reply,much appreciated.

Chuck.

[big_teee]

I'm strictly a hobbyist, but too me nothing looks nicer than a well layed out Turret board.
I put most of the wires on the bottom of the board and lay most components out 10mm apart.
I like the voltage chain straps on the top.
Then again I mainly build Marshall style.
B_T