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Post by reTrEaD on Feb 17, 2020 13:21:22 GMT -5
only is a problem when i have it coiled up neatly guess i shall be replacing the power cord Nah, just coil it up neatly ... in the opposite direction! 😄
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Post by thetragichero on Feb 17, 2020 13:25:00 GMT -5
my first instinct was a solder blob and some electrical tape but this is being shipped to Illinois and i don't want to have to refund any money for it what can i say, I'm a whole butt kinda guy
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Post by thetragichero on Feb 17, 2020 14:35:26 GMT -5
finally getting this packed up to ship out. hopefully he's been saving up since the last time (months ago) we discussed price and he was shocked
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Post by blademaster2 on Feb 24, 2020 14:12:46 GMT -5
I re-installed a 'shortened' metal cover over the new SSL-1 pickup that I swapped in to one of my guitars in December. This was purely cosmetic, but I missed that clean look it used to have. I first tried it with tape holding the cover in place and played for a long while so I would know if any "eddy current" difference was audible in the high frequencies, but it still sounded good to me (but not like a Strat). This guitar is pretty bright anyway. I cut the sides lower on the metal cover (minimizing the metal needed) so it now sits just below the pickup mounting ring. wonder woman free svg file
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Post by thetragichero on Feb 27, 2020 23:33:19 GMT -5
manning the overnight shift at a cold night shelter, so besides stuffing my face with junk food i have brought the germanium transistors I've salvaged and the components to test the gain and leakage from the geofex site. yay knocking out tedious work!
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Post by blademaster2 on Mar 1, 2020 13:42:13 GMT -5
I spent a while yesterday debugging my 1970-era AMPEG V4. It suddenly sounded very dull and lifeless on Channel 1, and I first suspected the preamplifier 12AX7 since Channel 2 was fine. Opening it up, swapping the preamp tubes between the two channels showed that it was not the tubes (although the two had noticeably different tone, which surprised me that I could hear a difference. One was more edgy and the other more clear and crisp but both sound good). I ended up opening it up and spraying cleaner into the controls, which seemed to correct the initial problem I had. The thing is so darned heavy, even doing that is a major undertaking, but it is worth the effort. (It is still in excellent condition). Someday I might need to do a full re-cap, which will be very involved ...
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Post by thetragichero on Mar 1, 2020 14:09:35 GMT -5
those v4s are lovely
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Post by reTrEaD on Mar 4, 2020 17:41:25 GMT -5
I spent a while yesterday debugging my 1970-era AMPEG V4. It suddenly sounded very dull and lifeless on Channel 1, and I first suspected the preamplifier 12AX7 since Channel 2 was fine. Opening it up, swapping the preamp tubes between the two channels showed that it was not the tubes (although the two had noticeably different tone, which surprised me that I could hear a difference. One was more edgy and the other more clear and crisp but both sound good). I ended up opening it up and spraying cleaner into the controls, which seemed to correct the initial problem I had. The thing is so darned heavy, even doing that is a major undertaking, but it is worth the effort. (It is still in excellent condition). Someday I might need to do a full re-cap, which will be very involved ... I have the sister to that. A V4b. Same amp, minus the sensitivity switches and reverb, plus an 'ultra-low' switch. I love the tone controls but what were they thinking, using linear pots for the volume controls? Ugh. Stellar cleans but don't try to drive it into power amp distortion. Your ears will bleed before you ever get close. And yes, it's a beast at roughly 65 pounds. But it could be worse. I never owned an SVT but I did some repairs on one for a friend. 85 pounds. Oh my aching back!
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Post by frets on Mar 7, 2020 12:38:27 GMT -5
I hope this image loads. This is a loaded Telecaster Harness that features Volume/Half Phase, Tone/Induct Tone and Varitone. It’s for a build and fits perfectly. The five way is B,B+N parallel,N, N with overdrive diodes, B+N series. The Varitone is bypass, .01,.015,.022,.033,.047. Pull up on the treble bled Volume for Half Phase. Tone pull-pull is regular cap tone down position, inducted (1.8H) up. /289smLT
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Post by newey on Mar 7, 2020 21:43:29 GMT -5
frets- That sounds downright tasty! Perhaps (hint, hint ) you could post a schematic and/or diagram in the Schematics section?
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Post by frets on Mar 8, 2020 11:29:53 GMT -5
Sure Newey, Just give me a bit of time because this stuff comes out of my head. Wait a second, stuff-ing comes out of my head.
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Post by thetragichero on Mar 9, 2020 0:21:33 GMT -5
trying imgur for image hosting so fingers crossed... i usually build one box at a time but it's super time consuming so I'm trying twins for this rangemaster-inspired fuzz. using a low gain, low leakage npn germanium transistor with a low gain high leakage pnp germanium in a sziklai pair to get something suitable. adjustable high pass filter on the input for low frequency BEEF
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Post by thetragichero on Mar 13, 2020 17:07:40 GMT -5
mad rush to get everything done by Sunday matching 1x15 is mostly done. there was a party of the tolex that didn't glue down taut so I've fixed that, tomorrow afternoon will finish it up
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Post by thetragichero on Mar 14, 2020 19:04:26 GMT -5
sun makes the grill cloth look a bit worse than otherwise sounds niiiiice with the big cabinet
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Post by thetragichero on Mar 16, 2020 12:02:16 GMT -5
my 1965 guild m65 which i have had since i was 8 that my father purchased at a yard sale for $38 has needed some tlc for a long time. so i have begun tearing it all apart, polishing the chrome, probably hitting everything with some clear poly, potting the pickup (man hollowbodies can feed back), and replacing all the electronics (scratching pots, tone pot is more like on/off, etc) think I've figured one of the reasons the single coil never was particularly bright 1500pf across the pickup leads. also 47nf paper in oil capacitor is probably completely dried out my plan is 250k volume pot and 500k tone pot so that i have a ton of brightness on tap from the only pickup located in the neck. have a set of brite flats on their way (wanted 12s since this is shorter scale than a fender). cost me 3x what I'd pay for a set of an ghs boomers but the old gal is worth it and I'm intending to use this for praise and worship so breathing some new life will be nice
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Post by blademaster2 on Mar 17, 2020 16:20:32 GMT -5
I spent a while yesterday debugging my 1970-era AMPEG V4. It suddenly sounded very dull and lifeless on Channel 1, and I first suspected the preamplifier 12AX7 since Channel 2 was fine. Opening it up, swapping the preamp tubes between the two channels showed that it was not the tubes (although the two had noticeably different tone, which surprised me that I could hear a difference. One was more edgy and the other more clear and crisp but both sound good). I ended up opening it up and spraying cleaner into the controls, which seemed to correct the initial problem I had. The thing is so darned heavy, even doing that is a major undertaking, but it is worth the effort. (It is still in excellent condition). Someday I might need to do a full re-cap, which will be very involved ... I have the sister to that. A V4b. Same amp, minus the sensitivity switches and reverb, plus an 'ultra-low' switch. I love the tone controls but what were they thinking, using linear pots for the volume controls? Ugh. Stellar cleans but don't try to drive it into power amp distortion. Your ears will bleed before you ever get close. And yes, it's a beast at roughly 65 pounds. But it could be worse. I never owned an SVT but I did some repairs on one for a friend. 85 pounds. Oh my aching back! I have actually modified my AMPEG V4 to reduce the volume to around 1/20 of the signal level. These mods are completely reversible, but they permit me to turn it up and get a good edgy distortion from the preamplifier stage at around 7-8 without attracting the police. It is still pretty loud, but usable if I was in a jam session or a small club. Sadly, at home it is still only used at those levels when the wife is out for obvious reasons. When I first bought this amp I was a kid and wanted a Marshall-type crunch, which this amp is not going to give and I was disappointed. But now I appreciate its 'smokey warmth' and cleans (and I have since acquired a Marshall combo, a VOX AC15, and I plan to round it out with a Fender someday).
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Post by thetragichero on Mar 18, 2020 12:40:54 GMT -5
so here we are. couldn't wait for the flats to get here (were due Thursday, showed up this afternoon) so i strung 'er up with some strings i had in the box in the closest gauges i could find (all but the low e are ground wound nickel rockers, low e is ghs boomer). sounds pretty great, still howls in front of a loud amp (all that air vibrating inside) but she's never looked or sounded so good!
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Post by newey on Mar 18, 2020 16:12:38 GMT -5
There is the old Mark Farner (of Grand Funk Railroad)trick of black electrical tape over the f holes.
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Post by thetragichero on Mar 27, 2020 0:50:04 GMT -5
don't think I've posted here about the 85 ibanez rb630 with a terrible refin i picked up for dirt cheap. posted it on the bass forum because they were able to tell me what it was but after stripping the body and spraying black analine dye mixed with waterbased poly, polishing all the chrome i could save (bridge was in awful shape and missing a saddle so that was replaced with a new wilkinson), rewired with new bourns pots, switchcraft jack, cleaning and spraying the neck so that i polish it.... it'll be ready to string up tomorrow, after i take a trip to ace to find some pickguard screws before they painted the pickguard, body, and bridge with house paint...... after
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Post by thetragichero on Apr 1, 2020 2:01:35 GMT -5
after quite a bit of time away, back to the trainwreck express build not gonna lie, the first 5-10 minutes was pure panic not sure what to do but eventually i found my groove. super slow progress as always but little by slowly we'll get there
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Post by thetragichero on Apr 1, 2020 23:49:32 GMT -5
all of the tone tweak switches wired up (besides the loose switch as that is connected to the negative feedback). second 12ax7 is wired up. next is phase inverter, figure out the rest of the bias circuit, run the heater wires (after seeing someone go vertical with them man does that make things easier), and get 'er fired up
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Post by thetragichero on Apr 5, 2020 20:31:23 GMT -5
what to do with with a 15vac tap on a scavenged power transformer? voltage tripler for a bias tap!
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Post by sumgai on Apr 6, 2020 12:20:11 GMT -5
what to do with with a 15vac tap on a scavenged power transformer? ....... voltage tripler for a bias tap! What's your intended current draw on that bias line, trag? Do keep in mind that voltage doublers, etc. are also current halfers, etc. (I know, bad English, but it gets the point across.) sumgai
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Post by thetragichero on Apr 6, 2020 12:28:26 GMT -5
very little i ran resistor power dissipation calculations for 10ma to over spec by a long shot (less than a watt. using 2w metal oxide anyway because that's what i have on hand) relays generally require a couple hundred ma if my quick google search can be believed, so I'll have way more than needed
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Post by sumgai on Apr 6, 2020 15:40:20 GMT -5
trag, Yeppers, yer good to go! I didn't realize that this 15vAC tap was intended for operating relays, so you needn't go any further down 'calculation road'. What I was thinking was that you may have obtained this power source from a digital circuit's power supply. Mea culpa. sumgai
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Post by thetragichero on Apr 6, 2020 17:03:43 GMT -5
i always appreciate someone backing up information I've culled (or thought i have ;-)) from various Google search results. sometimes I'll find something that i think backs up what i want it to and roll with it
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Post by newey on Apr 6, 2020 20:38:16 GMT -5
As sort of a half-a$$ed historian around here, I should point out that this thread, which is mostly from tragic although others have chimed in, has now eclipsed the infamous Jfrankparnell "Major to Minor- Where is My Mind" thread, in both page count and quantity of replies/posts. This has now truly become "The Thread That Wouldn't Die". Congratulations on achieving this Nutzy milestone! However, I will also add that, while I like the "potpourri" nature of the thread, I wish you would document some of these epic amp builds in separate threads in the Amps section. It's going to get tough 10 years from now if someone wants to find, for example, your Trainwreck build without having to peruse 8 pages. And also, since the Amp section is underrepresented around here. You lift the cred for the group here.
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Post by thetragichero on Apr 6, 2020 22:14:27 GMT -5
you are 100% correct, i could be juking our stats in effects too I've moved my 2x 6v6/6l6g power amp to its own thread i shall take some time over the next few days to break out other builds
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Post by thetragichero on Apr 9, 2020 0:12:19 GMT -5
this is my "butt metal" guitar. gets strung up with 13s and tuned to an open b chord. kinda hard NOT to come up with heavy riffs tuned so low (only guitar i keep tuned below dadgad... i don't like to take it easy on myself lol) anyway this needed some love. got a $7 hot rail for the neck, middle is probably my favorite production single coil: fender roadworn 60s tex mex bridge pickup. bridge is a gfs crunchy pat i hated until i swapped the magnet for an alnico 8 and repotted had a spare super switch so i figured I'd get creative. all positions except for middle are setup for series humcancelling: bridge series humbucker, bridge screw coil in series with middle, middle, whichever coil of the neck is rwrp wrt the middle pickup in series with middle, neck series humbucker single 500k volume. slide switch throws 470k resistor parallel to volume control outer lugs (same loading as a 500k tone pot on 10... previous incarnation had the tone pot hanging in the cavity. volume pot is push/pull with a half out of phase for the middle pickup. pushbutton killswitch have to finish sand the neck before i can get this strung up. all positions seem to check out with a multimeter measuring resistance at the jack so i am hopeful it will work!
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Post by thetragichero on Apr 15, 2020 0:25:05 GMT -5
picked this up off my old man last summer. finally had time to replace some gnarly old electro caps and fire it up
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