Dr. Exotica
New member
Two Christmases ago, I gave my son a SEX kit. He had a great time putting it together and enjoying it as a high school student. This past fall, he went off to college. In his checked luggage, he had his SEX kit, properly packaged. Once he got to school, he learned that TSA had inspected his luggage (no surprise, I imagine a point-to-point wired amp looks pretty sketchy under x-ray), but did not properly repack it. It turns out the chassis plate was badly bent (1/2" over it's length), and the wood enclosure was pretty messed up. He sent it back to me for repairs.
I decided that I would take the opportunity to hop it up a bit during the course of the repair. I added the C4S, some 3rd party VU meters, and some fancier caps in the direct signal path. Due to the size of the VU meters (standard eBay ones from the far east), I decided to extend the chassis another inch and had a chassis plate manufactured. Also, I added a new wood enclosure (oiled mahogany), and a raw (partially disassembled) 12vdc/0.5A wall wart to power the VU meters and power indicator.
The biggest surprise was the difficulty in reattaching the amp to the new chassis plate without a full rebuild. When I removed the amp from the original bent chassis plate, I cut as few wires as possible. The disconnected amp held together, though you had to be delicate. It was pretty odd though; I've built a number of tube preamps and amps over the years, but never had one that was detached from the chassis - like a body without a skeleton. Reattaching it was a bear, to say the least. I had to get pretty clever with some bamboo skewers, hot glue, and those pesky little #4 nuts...
In any event, it turned out fairly well - my son was quite surprised and impressed. Sounds better than ever.
Attached is some porn for those that are interested.
I decided that I would take the opportunity to hop it up a bit during the course of the repair. I added the C4S, some 3rd party VU meters, and some fancier caps in the direct signal path. Due to the size of the VU meters (standard eBay ones from the far east), I decided to extend the chassis another inch and had a chassis plate manufactured. Also, I added a new wood enclosure (oiled mahogany), and a raw (partially disassembled) 12vdc/0.5A wall wart to power the VU meters and power indicator.
The biggest surprise was the difficulty in reattaching the amp to the new chassis plate without a full rebuild. When I removed the amp from the original bent chassis plate, I cut as few wires as possible. The disconnected amp held together, though you had to be delicate. It was pretty odd though; I've built a number of tube preamps and amps over the years, but never had one that was detached from the chassis - like a body without a skeleton. Reattaching it was a bear, to say the least. I had to get pretty clever with some bamboo skewers, hot glue, and those pesky little #4 nuts...
In any event, it turned out fairly well - my son was quite surprised and impressed. Sounds better than ever.
Attached is some porn for those that are interested.
