Fuse holder again

[Randall]

I had a 66 Pro Reverb come in that I had recently re-furbbed, because it cut out at a gig, and wouldn't power back up. Pilot lamp went out, tubes went dark, no output. Customer pulled the fuse, it looked good, then he misplaced it. He plugged another amp into the same AC recepticle and finished his gig. He found the fuse and cap and brought it to me, and it powered right up. Since there really isn't much it could be to lose primary power, I quickly determined nothing was dead or loose. Rectifier was tight, pilot lamp seems good, all wiring is good, nothing I could do would make it fail.

Then, on a whim, I put a swab wet with DeOxit in the fuse holder, and holy cow was that ever filthy! I have to admit, I had never thought to do this before, but it is on my checklist now. My theory is, it was dirty enough that the fuse lost connection, and probably the action of removing it and re-installing it scraped away enough crud to make a 'good enough' connection. That was a few days ago, and I just got a text saying the amp was working very well again, great tone, etc.

So a fuse holder has been the problem and solution for me twice now in as many weeks, where I never really thought too much about them previously. C'est la vie!

My usual cleaning includes, all jacks, controls, switches and tube sockets, but I will be adding fuse holder from here on out.

[Mick Bailey]

Here in the UK the mains plug is fused, too and the contacts corrode or just suffer from oxidation. As the resistance creeps up then so does the heat. With vintage amps the plugs can be decades old and be the source of all kinds of intermittent problems. Like yourself, I'd never really given fuse holders too much thought until I had a few problems that stemmed from them. I used to just check the fuse value but nowadays ensure the fuse is making good contact as well.