Silvertone 1484 Twin Twelve

[tigerzilly]

Dreams do come true. I never win anything. No raffles. No door prizes. When I comb the amp forums so many times I read about the guy who got the tube amp for free. That prospect has always evaded me. Last night my fortunes changed. I got a message from a guy with a tube amp which he describes as working and sounds great with a les paul through it. I call the guy back today and he says he's old and the amp it too heavy. You can have it. Well doesn't it figure my car is under repair and won't be fixed until the end of the week. But he says it yours...don't worry...I'll hold on to it. He said he was going to drag it out to the street and put a sign on it that says free, but the weather called for rain and he figured it would be ruined. I asked, not that it mattered, but does he know what kind of amp it is. He says it was made by Sears or Montgomery Ward and it's too damn heavy.

It was driving me crazy today having to wait until the end of the week. Even if he did say its mine. Until its in my hands anything can happen. I tried to get my car back going but, no go. Then my 16 year old son messages me for a ride from school. He lives with his mother and should get his license in a couple weeks. I say my car is not working, but I could ride my bike to his house and use his mother's spare car to get him and btw I have this tube amp I can get for free if i could get that too. He checks with his mom and tells me where the keys are. I grab my 3 year old daughter, put her in a bike trailer, throw the car seat in the trailer and ride my bike about 5 miles to my Xs house. I pick up my son from school, but when I tell him the amp is 45 mins away he doesn't want to go. And he's the one who plays guitar. I say how about I take you home and make the run for the amp. He agrees, so I drop him home and go.

I got to the guys house at about six tonight. He can barley walk up the stairs. He shows me the amp and cabinet. The amp is sitting inside the back of the cabinet. He insist on showing me its working even though I'm reluctant to have it powered up. There are mouse dropping in the bottom of the cabinet and it looks like a nest behind a tube. But it works. I get the amp and my daughter in the car and as I'm driving away I get a call from my X. She's pissed and lectures me about asking her not her son. Of course I say, so sorry. I drive my ass to my house, drop off my daughter and the amp, stop to fill her tank and get her car back to her house. Then I ride my bike five miles back home.

I usually don't write long stories on the forums because I don't like to read them. But hey! It happened to me! It was free! Now I have a Silvertone 1484 Twin Twelve amp.

[tigerzilly]

Pics of the amp.

[Enzo]

Hey, good for you!

[TomCarlos]

Nice score!!! Just be careful during the cleanup. Wear a mask and use gloves! You might consider a light spray of water and clorox (where the rats left a mess).

[soundmasterg]

Nice score!!! Just be careful during the cleanup. Wear a mask and use gloves! You might consider a light spray of water and clorox (where the rats left a mess).

Nice score! They are a pain to work on but sound great. I wrote up some stuff on working on one of those with many possible mods here at Ampage and I think at Hoffman's site too. You can search me on both sites and you'll likely find them.

Greg

[tigerzilly]

Nice score! They are a pain to work on but sound great.

Greg

What makes them a pain to work on?

[Justin Thomas]

Looking at the pictures online of yhe guts, the fact that they are in a very narrow chassis & wired true point-to-point. And as someone who builds true P2P amps in recycles organ chassis, I can vouch for them to be difficulr to work on.

Justin

[tigerzilly]

Chassis removed. The underside looks pretty clean!

[Helmholtz]

What are the big bottles? Two different 6L6s?

[tigerzilly]

What are the big bottles? Two different 6L6s?

Yes they are.

[tigerzilly]

I exposed the speakers. Jensen C12Q that date to 1966. Only one is connected.

I also found a pile of money!

I mean mouse shit.

[nickb]

I see big bottles and... a barrel of beer. Amp welcoming party maybe?

[soundmasterg]

What makes them a pain to work on?

They used shoddy parts in some cases, such as the material the boards are made out of which can break easily if bent at all; the resistors aren't very good quality and drift more than most; the output transformer is very undersized and often fails in these amps; the layout is very poor and if you try to increase gain very much in either channel the hum increases a lot more than the increase in gain and there is no way around it except to use mu-metal (very expensive) to isolate the influence from the centrally located power transformer; the reverb is cheesy sounding but that likely won't matter because it likely doesn't work due to a very cheap quality reverb tank that often breaks. In other cases there are some things they did that are good practice but make it very hard to work on, such as the fact they wrapped the leads of the parts around the terminal strips tightly before soldering. Its great for stability but hard to repair. The brown coupling caps aren't the greatest though they usually still work. The electrolytic caps said they were 'guaranteed for one year' but they last much longer than that, though they weren't very good quality either back in the day. They could really use the addition of a voltage doubler to the bias supply and an adjustable bias so the tubes will run cooler. The power supply used two voltage doublers stacked on top of each other which doesn't regulate very well and due to the low value of the caps used in the doublers, the first equivalent cap is somewhat low so there is more hum than necessary. The amp is low gain stock so you don't notice the hum as bad as if you try to mod to increase gain. The chassis is really cramped too.

All that said they are cool sounding amps in stock form or modified, the trem is really nice, and they are pretty reliable amps. You will need to come up with a mod to replace the can cap as they are not available anymore in those values, so you can cut a bigger hole and put in a dual cap, then add others under the chassis with terminal strips, or you can leave the stock can in place but disconnect it electrically and use discrete caps in the chassis with terminal strips.

Greg

[tigerzilly]

I see big bottles and... a barrel of beer. Amp welcoming party maybe?

I tend to drink a lot of beer when I work on the amps. Kegerator by my side!

[tigerzilly]

Removed the speakers. They look intact but one seems it may be brittle.

The baffel board looks like 1/4" masonite board. Very flimsy. I think I should epoxy coat the inside of the particle board cabinet and replace the baffle with plywood.