Project Completed

G

Guy Boisvert

New member
It has been a great pleasure and satisfaction  to put this kit together.

I made a few modifications:  I built a longer wood base. It's 1 1/4 inch longer . It is made of maple. The Speedball upgrade is mounted in the rear and vented. As can be seen on the photo,  the upgrade is attached to the main board. The transformer bell received a chrome plated treatment. The volume control was switched to the right side...near my comfort chair. The tubes are:  A1834 (brown base) and  Telefunken 12AU7 (smooth plates].  Headphones are Sennheiser HD 650.

Below the Bottlehead insignia, the brass plate reads "Lucernae Magica" ,  meaning in Latin : "The Magic of Tubes".
 

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Thank you so kindly grufti ! As I mentionned, it was such fun to do this. I just retired a few months ago and this helped in the transition period. Nothing more relaxing, both during the building of it and the enjoyment of listening to it.
 
Good LORD, is this your first kit? If so, I can't imagine what you will produce in the future. The details are just right. Simple and elegant. So, how did you go about chrome plating the bell?
 
Thanks ! Yes, it is my first kit.

I simply sent the transformer bell to a plating shop in Montreal....they specialize in chrome plating Harley-Davidson motorcycle parts, but they did this all OK. I even got them to plate the screw heads. The rear top vent was cut out from an old aluminium ham radio speaker enclosure. I removed the paint and sanded it with fine sandpaper. The silver divider between the top plate and the vent is simply a piece of maple painted with aluminium paint
 
Felicitations!!!!

You're Crack looks amazing.  Nice mods.  You should be proud. 

All the best from a Canadian Crack head!  (Ottawa)

Take care...Dave
 
Thanks for the kind words Dave. I am really looking forward to try another kit, but I don't know what. Perhaps something to drive speakers ? I live in a small New Brunswick town and it's hard to listen to display speakers. So, right now, I would not know where to start....
 
Wow!

How about the wood - what did you use for stain/finishing?  How is the top plate attached?
 
I made the base with maple. Since maple is a very dense hardwood, it is next to impossible to stain because the pigments cannot be absorbed properly. I gave up trying to stain it a dark mahogany. Instead, I primed it and finished it with three coats of black flat latex paint.

To attach the top plate, I simply glued two pieces of pine to the base (on each side) and drilled small holes in the top plate. I use  #6  3/4" stainless steel screws. When snug, the screws secure the top plate and it takes a second or two to remove them.
 

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The trick with maple is to use aniline dye rather than pigmented stain. Tinted lacquer works well too.
 
I don't know how it would work on other materials. The stuff I have used is specifically sold for use on wood, but it might work on other stuff. There are interesting uses of colorants that are originally intended for a different purpose. For example, Rit fabric dye is supposed to work for color anodizing aluminum.
 
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