Los Angeles Speedball'd Crack

[dawnchorus]

Hi all,

Finally finished my Crack with the Speedball upgrade. It was amazing fun to build and sounds beautiful, I listened to it for about a week without the Speedball and it makes a massive difference.

After sanding the base, I used J.E. Moser's aniline dye and finished it with five coats of Spar Varnish. I let each coat of varnish dry overnight and then sanded with 400-grit sandpaper each time to get a smooth finish.

The top plate took a crazy amount of hours to get the mirror finish. I started with 200-grit and worked my way up to a 2000-grit wet sand. After that I used S100 Polishing Soap and then Blue Magic Metal Polish Cream. I also swapped out the volume knob for a solid aluminum one.

I also did the pot mod (thanks to adeep42 for the resistors) and headphone jack voltage mod after these photos were taken. I think my next project will be a matching Eros. Let me know what you guys think!

 

[denti alligator]

Nice job!

 

[adeep42]

Love the mirror finish and the spike feet. Very nicely done. Delighted that I could help.

Best regards,

Alan(adeep)

 

[ALL212]

Like the way the tubes reflect off of that finish.  Very nice job!

 

[powermatic]

Looks great, I really like the look of the polished aluminum plate! A lot of work, but worth it. FYI, for future projects, if you have a bench grinder, using a couple of buffing wheels with the appropriate compounds saves a ton of time, and a coat of wax after it's all done will help maintain the shine longer. Beautiful amp, well done.

 

[Karl5150]

Nice Work. Good to see another SoCal  Bottlehead representing.

 

[powermatic]

Nice. The finish looks fantastic with the polished aluminum and the 'points'. Great attention to detail.

 

[elnrik]

Old thread, I know.  I was wondering which color dye you used?

Thanks!