Strange historical project - what should I build with these?

[jamesmafyew]

I was recently commissioned to do a strange guitar amp build. The client works for the SS United States Conservancy. The SS United States is a 50s ocean liner that was scrapped and is sitting at a pier in Philadelphia. It's an enormous mess of a ship and the conservancy is trying to get it opened to the public again. This guy was given most of the ships old tube PA equipment, along with bags and bags of tubes. He's commissioned me to build him a guitar amp (anything I want) out of pieces of the ship's old PA. He wants it less for its use than to have something unique that is tied to the ship in a meaningful way, a kind of memento. I can use other parts too, but he specifically wanted to use as much from the ship's PA as possible.

Here's what we've got tube-wise (LOTS of all of them):
6x5gt
6sl7gt
6n7
2d21
6sj7
6f5
6h6
7f7
7n7

Along with lots of sockets, various transformers and chokes, several chassis to choose from, switches, and knobs. No pots that work. I would like to keep this PTP. Low power is fine. Single-ended, P-P, doesn't matter. Obviously I'm not going to clone a Fender or Marshall, but it would be cool to have a topology that would have been familiar in the time period the ship was running.

Any recommendations for what could be built with some of this? He and I are open to ANYTHING... because this is an unusual project and will certainly have unusual results.

[Jazz P Bass]

Well. it looks like you have a few power pentodes, power triodes, a bevy of triode preamp tubes , a few diodes (rectifiers) & a 2D21 Thyratron (most likely it was used for switching something).
You may want to grab some of the sockets.

[Leo_Gnardo]

SS United States is a 50s ocean liner that was scrapped and is sitting at a pier in Philadelphia. It's an enormous mess of a ship and the conservancy is trying to get it opened to the public again. This guy was given most of the ships old tube PA equipment, along with bags and bags of tubes. He's commissioned me to build him a guitar amp

Heck of a project! Too bad there's no obvious power tube choices. Would have been nice to have "bags of" vintage TungSol 6550, Gold Lion KT88, RCA 6L6GC or Mullard EL34. Oh well.

I got to visit the SS US in 1960 on a school field trip. She was docked in New York, reloading for another Atlantic crossing. Totally awesome & very plush as seen thru the eyes of a grade schooler.

[oc disorder]

My first thoughts were to build some kind of amplifier to reproduce suitable broadcasts from the era like many audio/visual
(well maybe not visual unless you want to build a 50's radar) installations at historic sites.
Thought I'd "scooped the pool" when I came across audio "Hear also SS UNITED STATES/KJEH send greetings " recorded from the Queen Mary...

http://www.radiomarine.org/audio/list

In this wonderful recording made by R/O Arthur Goodnow in 1967 RMS QUEEN MARY/GBTT may be heard in costact with ships and coast stations on the MF band as she departs New York for her last eastbound passage across the Atlantic. Hear GBTT say "wow" when he hears how many QTC WSC has on the hook. Before taking them, GBTT sends a SVC message of thanks to the staff of WSC then says "shoot" and WSC starts sending the stack of messages. As OM Goodnow says, the exchange shows "the practiced precision and indescribable elan of that distinguishes expert manual telegraphy". Hear also SS UNITED STATES/KJEH send greetings. This, brothers and sisters, is how it was done by the best of them. QSP via David Ring's outstanding Web site at:

http://mikea.ath.cx/www.n1ea.coastalradio.org.uk/

but I missed "manual telegraphy" so consequently the mp3 I downloaded was full of morse code.....:-(

Still plausible though!

However I found this...

http://www.amazon.ca/Lets-Dance-Board-United-States/dp/B004KKYATI

Pianist Alfred Menconi led a small orchestra and dance band that was extremely popular in the clubs and hotels on the east coast and particularly on the cruise ship circuit. The classic rare album, "Let's Dance On Board The S.S. United States," originally recorded in 1959, provides a wonderful aural document of this fine working dance band. All selections, newly remastered.

... which when on an infinite repeat CD player hidden from view or mp3 player on continuous repeat
fed through the reassembled parts would be unique !

Well my roll stopped rolling but that's my train of thought !!

Edit: Another thought would be to do some research on typical ship to shore and back radio communications and have a local repertory company voice a mock up of same complete with static and a nasty 1k peak to simulate a radio room audio.