Little amp I've been working on

[Dmoney]

I've been working for a while on a Fender style project for another chap. He wanted a kind of a blend of new and old low power tweed twin.
The preamp is old school 5e8-a, but the amp has some additional fuses and other reliability tweaks. Like it now has a HT fuse internally, and it'll run even if both valve rectifiers short out. It also has a half power pentode/triode switch.

It's not often I get to build circuits like this, so it's been a cool project. i have a couple of things I need to tidy up inside the amp and a few finishing touches to add, but it sounds really good. I got it to the edge of breakup playing through it yesterday and it was sounding great. The speakers are jensen P12Q's and need a bit of breaking in. This amp will be sitting around for a while so i've got plenty of time to take some proper photos and enjoy it myself.

Makes me want to build a Tweed Super or Bandmaster for myself. Thought some of you guys might like to see it.

[Elliot]

Very nice!!!  How does it sound?

[Dmoney]

Very clean at low volumes. The presence isn't very in your face, not like a JCM800 presence control. The treble and bass are quite interactive and also effect the overall volume but you can get a lot of good tones from it. The normal channel sounds really nice, the bright channel is pretty bright at low volume in comparison to the normal channel but its not over bearing.

I was playing my vigier with nailbombs through it and I sounded great. Really nice sounds on the neck and in the  split coil (2 & 4) positions. Also sounded nice on the middle single coil. Great range of sounds really. I cranked it up till it distorted for a second but that was loud (my workshop has a bit of an echo that makes everything sound louder than it is!) but it sounded really cool. I want to have a go at that again in a better environment or when it's less busy around the workshop. The half power switch doesn't make a huge difference to the volume but it does alter the feel of the amp.

The P12Q's sound fine. I also played it through my closed back 2x12 with Vintage 30's before I got the cab set up. Pretty 'in your face'! One thing you can't do with this amp is jump the channels. You need some sort of splitter before the amp but that could be interesting. I might try it since I have a palmer splitter box somewhere. I'm glad it sounds as good as it does. The part types (orange drops etc) used where chosen by the guy who commissioned the build and I put it all together. We collaborated on adding the extra fuse and the rectifier "back-up" mods.

[dave_mc]

very nice :D

[Kiichi]

Really cool. Certainly renews my interest in getting a super low powered Fender style amp (less than the 5W I have) and a 2x10" cab.

The way you describe it makes it seems like a pretty beastly blues amp.

[Telerocker]

That looks way cool. I like the clean sounds these circuits produce.

[jpfamps]

Top job.

When you start looking into the Tweed amp circuits, you realize just how talented Leo Fender was.

[Dmoney]

Cheers all

Really cool. Certainly renews my interest in getting a super low powered Fender style amp (less than the 5W I have) and a 2x10" cab.

The way you describe it makes it seems like a pretty beastly blues amp.

I'd say so for sure. My interest in these amps was renewed a while ago when I saw The Ruts, Theatre Of Hate and The Damned. Leigh Heggarty was playing guitar for the Ruts and he sounded awesome. I think he was using a blues deluxe and a few pedals. All the reggae and dub sounded great and the older jams at the punk end of what they play had all the bite they needed. For me it just sounded classy, and that renewed my interest in fenders. I'd always been more in the 'modded marshall' camp.

[Telerocker]

Those amps both appeal to me, it just depends what band I am what I prefer at that moment. For my coverband I need something with a F-style amp vibe. For my classic/bluesrock-project I like my Rockerverb and H&K Statesman 50 head/2x12cab, that I snatched two months ago for little money.

[38thBeatle]

Apart from anything else- I am in awe of your skills, let alone the design aspect.

[sgmypod]

nice amp. ...looks well built

[PhilKing]

It looks really nice, but probably a bit too loud for me!

[Dmoney]

I'll be able to take some nicer photos soon. which reminds me, I need to design a name plate for it.
It is loud and it has linear pots so the volume jumps up a bit at the low end of the volume rotation. It's actually about 30watts as it saggs quite a bit but even into soft clipping it still sounds really clean. The half power switch changes the tone a little since its a pentode/triode switch, but the customer likes that switch. I put one on a 50watt SLO style amp I built for the same guy and he uses it all the time apparently. Same guy owns a reissue 57' tweed twin and he's been using that with celestions  in and an attenuator. Power Scaling is something I'm a bit sceptical about. I don't think those circuits are always designed in a safe manner (there are many outside of the trademarked Kevin O'Connor "power scaling" ones). I like simple amps designed to do a specific job, but I can totally see why people would use variable voltage reduction.