Wooden Eyelet board on "boutique" amp??!

[Chuck H]

Yupper! I wouldn't dis anyone for using that technique for developing circuits. I think it's sort of cool and practical that you still do it. But, would you build a customers amp on a wooden circuit board? I imagine the thing in mediocre storage filling with dust, then sitting out in a cold alley behind a bar just condensing and generally becoming "moist" sitting in the truck. Let's get that thing on stage now! Plug it in and play a set The best I can say about that is it'll probably be alright. When I hand an amp over to a customer I like to do better than "probably be alright".

[ThermionicScott]

I dig prototyping on breadboards, too. No chance of UL certification with this one, though!

[g1]

Chuck, if it gets wet, you just dry it out over the campfire.

[Tom Phillips]

So maybe this is all fantasy since the OP never came back with a photo.

[Chuck H]

So maybe this is all fantasy since the OP never came back with a photo.

Well "I" wouldn't want to be the guy that pitches a "fairly well known boutique builder's amp" under the bus. I think I'd get over it though Point is, it's alright to be uncomfortable about being the agent of doom for a builder on the world wide web. To put it mildly.

[Justin Thomas]

Yeah, I'm sure I don't want pics of MY builds all over the web! Then again, most I've charged was $450. Meh, you get what ya pay for!

The WWW is not exactly kind to PTP & mixed builds, anyway. Because as clean as a vintage Hiwatt it ain't!

Justin

[J M Fahey]

I dig prototyping on breadboards, too. No chance of UL certification with this one, though!

I *LOVED* the handles

But now to serious matters: it is considered *cheating* to clean the benchtop as you did, just for pictures.
Etiquette says you must show it in its natural messy state

As shown, it's unfair competition to mine and probably a couple around here.

[nosaj]

it looks like striated phenolic board i had some pots that used that with the carbon track laid on it. The guys at antique Radio forum said that's what it was.

nosaj
http://antiqueradios.com/forums/view...591&hilit=wood

[nosaj]

Yeah, I'm sure I don't want pics of MY builds all over the web! Then again, most I've charged was $450. Meh, you get what ya pay for!

The WWW is not exactly kind to PTP & mixed builds, anyway. Because as clean as a vintage Hiwatt it ain't!

Justin

Because there is method to the madness you see in our builds

[Chuck H]

Etiquette says you must show it in its natural messy state

As shown, it's unfair competition to mine and probably a couple around here.

I'd bet a lot of benches look like that in the middle of a project. Especially in the design and circuit testing process. I temper my enthusiasm and tidy up before the actual board stuffing, wiring and assembly though. Otherwise I waste too much time re-checking components that are laying around and trying to find my pointy needle nose pliers that slid under the hookup wire rack, etc. A little mess is inherent to brainstorming, I think. But it becomes very inefficient when you've just got a job to perform.

[tedmich]

Certified genius Jim William's bench

also Genius Bob Pease's desk


(not all messes belong to geniuses)

[wizard333]

I can't imagine how anyone who would choose to make a circuit board from wood has the savvy to create circuits and amps that anyone would want.

Yeah me either, but like I said, it's a well known builder and the amp does sound good. He also chose to use carbon comps all the way through a medium/high gain circuit to, which I raised an eyebrow at for noise issues, but /shrug.

The reason I haven't posted a pic is I don't really want to torpedo someone's rep, and it might be obvious from the pics who's circuit it was. It's a hand wired amp and not hard to tell what's going on even from a photo.

It is *NOT* plywood. It is a thin piece of some kind of wood, no sh*t like the thin pieces you can buy at any hardware store. No idea how he drove the eyelets through without breaking it. It's pretty flimsy and I can easily bend it by pushing a single finger on it. When I first saw it I thought it was cream colored fiberglass board, then when I realized what it really was I had a "holy f*ck" moment.

I can't imagine how it would pass safety muster for sale of commercial electronics, but there it is.

It's at least good to hear most folk's reaction was similar to mine. I'll post a pic if I have time tomorrow.

Also it was not a 'vintage re-creation'. The circuits are not new but by the time they were in use it was on cheap PCBs, definitely not wood, so the use of that material can't be justified by trying to be vintage correct or some such nonsense. Even amps I've worked on from the 50s didn't use wooden boards lol.

[R.G.]

The few boutique amps I've looked into have left me shuddering. I'm sure that some boutique amp makers do a good, thoughtful, careful job of construction, and not only educate themselves about safety issues but also fret about doing it right. But there are disastrous examples - I've seen a few of these.

Formal safety requirements have formed much like coral reefs. When notable disasters happen, the pros look at how and why they happened, and add requirements that, if followed, would prevent that last disaster from happening again. It's an intricate, diverse set of knowledge, and self-proclaimed amplifier wizards generally are either ignorant of the existence of these requirements, or worse yet know something about them and willfully ignore them. I suppose that wiring an amp like they did it back in the 50s and 60s is presumed to be good enough; but it's not. There's been a half-century of experience about what electrocutes people and what starts fires that's accumulated since then.

A wooden circuit board is an OK idea for quick prototyping in a safe, protected environment. It's a disaster in an amp you sell, for many of the reasons mentioned. Electrocuting yourself or burning your own house down is not a good idea, but it's far better than killing other people a few years later.

Statistics have a way of catching up with you. There is a rising tide of "boutique" amps, including the instant boutique amps where someone builds their first amp from an amp kit, learning to solder along the way, then puts up a web page to sell their new line of amps, noting lovingly that they are hand assembled one at a time, and referring to themselves in the first person plural. With the increasing numbers, one day someone innocent will get killed by one of these instant boutique wonders and the case will hit the courts. It will be ugly.

And then there's what the selection of materials and techniques says about the builder. Thin wooden panels used as a substrate for high voltage, high(ish) current electrical equipment that can easily produce arcs and thereby fires, when there are materials that are widely and cheaply available which have the same or better electrical performance and won't support flames even when torched amounts to one of sheer naivete, sad misinformation or willful recklessness. Neither of these are good characteristics to have in a supplier of electrical equipment.