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I hate to leave anything unfinished, so I'll close this out with a short update.
1. Fixed the amp. Numerous failed / aged components, and design / build flaws.
2. Works well, tweaking tone. Sounds best to me (right now) with 6SL7s as the gain stage (using only one triode for now) and paraphase inverter, into a 10" Weber Pup. Very very low hum. Couldn't be happier with that aspect.
3. No more problems with the 6X5GT. With my experience on this amp (with a whole bunch of different tubes and designs) and thoroughly reading what the internet has to offer, I personally won't be concerned with building another amp with that rectifier tube, as long as its a fairly low output amp. But I wouldn't bother to do it unless I happened to have a transformer that doesn't have a 5V tap. See next comment.
4. I found 6SN7's hard to work with (enough amperage to make them happy with a big Ra) with the 70mA limit of the 6X5. I guess "sterile" is the word that people use to describe their tone unless they are approaching 9mA at idle. Learned a lot about biasing from these attempts.
5. Screens have a much more substantial effect on tone / dynamics than what I read here and elsewhere. At least on this amp (6V6's). YMMV--I don't know why my experience is different, but it does make sense to me. They are the closer anode.
So, thanks for the help--I read a lot of threads here to help figure this out. If anyone has an old 50's Grommes / Precision Electronic that you are working on, I've learned a few things on how to make them more "guitar appropriate" I'd be happy to throw in my plug nickel.
1. Fixed the amp. Numerous failed / aged components, and design / build flaws.
2. Works well, tweaking tone. Sounds best to me (right now) with 6SL7s as the gain stage (using only one triode for now) and paraphase inverter, into a 10" Weber Pup. Very very low hum. Couldn't be happier with that aspect.
3. No more problems with the 6X5GT. With my experience on this amp (with a whole bunch of different tubes and designs) and thoroughly reading what the internet has to offer, I personally won't be concerned with building another amp with that rectifier tube, as long as its a fairly low output amp. But I wouldn't bother to do it unless I happened to have a transformer that doesn't have a 5V tap. See next comment.
4. I found 6SN7's hard to work with (enough amperage to make them happy with a big Ra) with the 70mA limit of the 6X5. I guess "sterile" is the word that people use to describe their tone unless they are approaching 9mA at idle. Learned a lot about biasing from these attempts.
5. Screens have a much more substantial effect on tone / dynamics than what I read here and elsewhere. At least on this amp (6V6's). YMMV--I don't know why my experience is different, but it does make sense to me. They are the closer anode.
So, thanks for the help--I read a lot of threads here to help figure this out. If anyone has an old 50's Grommes / Precision Electronic that you are working on, I've learned a few things on how to make them more "guitar appropriate" I'd be happy to throw in my plug nickel.
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