The Collection

Here are a couple photos of Yeomans Instruments builds that remain in the possession of myself and my brother in-law, Josh. His is the 18 Watt Combo that is on the lower right. A description of those in the photos: Back Row: 1x12 semi-open-backed cab, 2x12 closed-back cab,
Front row on counter: Trainwreck Liverpool, JCM800
Floor: DC30 2x12 combo, Class Act 1x12 combo, 18 Watt 1x12 combo

Voltages

So, I am trying to reduce the gain slightly in one stage that seems to be too high and causing fizziness to the channel, and squealing at higher volumes.

After checking voltages, I feel like it might be at that last gain stage on the TRex channel before the phase inverter. I don't know what reasonable voltages would be, but what is the best way to reduce that one? Should I reduce the value of that plate resistor? I've also read that a snubbing capacitor parallel to it is a popular thing that Mesa will often do.

YGL3 Master Volume bypassed?

So, there should be more posts soon here, now that I am retired and have some time to work on important stuff again.

One thing I thought I would do is put this Traynor YGL-3a back to stock. I had been looking at schematics online and from my cd-rom that accompanies the Tube Amp Book. They all signaled that both channels should be affected by the Master Volume knob. However, my normal channel is not. This seemed really strange to me, so today I was going to put it back to stock. Well, it looks like my specific schematic inside the chassis of the amp (I love Traynors), shows it to be different than the other versions online. It seem like the amp alread is stock...

My Liverpool 30 with VVR

This has been together for quite some time now, and has made its way to Elkford to perform perfectly in a jam about a month ago.
Anyways, here is the Liverpool in its pine cabinet that Bryant built. There is a wooden faceplate as well that needs to be drilled out and labeled and mounted. However, It might not happen because this amp will eventually receive a very fancy hardwood cabinet to replace this one. The final faceplate will likely be purpleheart.

Joe's Express All Together

Test Clips of the Express and Liverpool

Sorry about my playing. I didn't even give a thought to the idea that I should play the guitar well. It's sloppy, but it's just supposed to give an idea of the amps' tone.
First We have the Express Clips with My Tele. Most of these are with the Humbucker in the Bridge:



Next We Have the Liverpool. This First one is with my Strat:

This next one is with the Humbucker into the Liverpool:

Liverpool Finished

Living in an apartment sucks. Tube amps are loud. I finished the Liverpool last night. I just tried to start it up again this morning but I heard someone moving around above me so I turned it off. I thought everyone was out right now. I'll try again later. Even trying at somewhat low levels is still really loud for an apartment. Even a 22 watt tube amp on 1/3 voltage with the gain halfway up will make it impossible for anyone to do anything else in the building. Aaaargh!!! I need somewhere to play my amps! I'm dying inside here. I need a different place!
Well, I can post pictures at least.

Express Powered Up

I popped tubes in and took one more photo last night before going to sleep:
Then, this morning since I woke up, I've been busy working on the amp again. First I had to go over all my noted again on how to bias, and then install the 1 ohm 2w resistors to do so. Biasing amps is such a pain it seems to me. I've gotten quite experienced at it, but it still might play a role in the fact that I prefer cathode biased amps. Anyways, after lots of adjustments, the Plate Voltages seemed to stay at 392 for these EL34s. It seems that Ken Fischer (as well as the league of the best amp builders in the world found at the ampgarage forum) biased his Expresses at about 55% plate dissipation, so I biased it at -35mA.
In case you'd like the formula for biasing tubes:
an EL34 is rated at 25 Watts so:
25W/392V = 63.8mA
55% of 63.8mA = 35mA
In case this looks wrong to you, we are able to get from Volts to Amps by using that 1 ohm resister to measure across.

Anyways, there was lots of hum issues and I realized that the bright switch is centre-off so right now it stops the signal in the centre position. I resolved much of the hum in this very unstable styled amp by making a bottom plate out of an old pedalboard that I glued a couple layers of Aluminaum foil to, as well as putting the shilds on the preamp tubes (I stole them from my DC30 - I'll need to buy more). The cabinet will have the foil sheld on the inside bottom of it. I still need to swap in a 2-position bright switch, and I will do that some time today as well.
Well, I really wish I lived in a place where I could turn this up to hear it properly. I don't dare play anything through it without the Voltage most of the way down (Horay for VVR!). So, I can get an idea of the sound, but these things are made to play loud and get your speakers interacting with your guitar more. Anyways, my initial impressions are very positive. It seems well balanced and usable. I expected it to be bit higher gain, but it is actually balanced right where I like it. 12 o'clock seems to be a nice amount of breakup when turning up the guitar volume, and a very rich and beautiful clean sound to a softer touch or lower guitar volume. I am extremely impressed by the voicing, and the amp sound very rich and harmonically pleasing. I'd say you could go from rhythm to lead playing with just a flip of the bright switch too. This amp seems to really give your guitar its voice. Anyways, I may check all the voltages throughout the amp to compare with other Express owners and see if anything could use some value tweaking.

Express Wiring Finished!

It is now 2:20 am on Saturday morning and I am going to go to bed now. I just completed all the wiring for Joe's Express. It is tradition to finish amps in the middle of the night and complain about how you are unable to plug it in because of the need to be quiet.

So, after spending a few more hours wiring, all that is left now is to check voltages and bias the tubes and eliminate hum and noise, make sure everything works properly, etc. So really, this could mean that things are just getting started, and some of the biggest headaches are yet to come. Tomorrow should be interesting.

Express Power Supply Wiring Completed!

Well, it's only been a few hours since my last post but I want to be diligent about my progress reports. I know have the Power Tube Sockets, and Filer Caps and VVR circuitry completely wired up. All that is left is the preamp section.

Express Progress Continues as Liverpool on Hold

Well, back to Guitar Amp building. In recent news, I have acquired a sales job at my favorite musical instrument store. I fly down to Vancouver for training in just over a week, so I have some time before then to complete some projects. First on the list is these Trainwreck guitar amps. I'd also like to remove the Leslie control switches from my M3 to give to my parents while I am down there. So, I'll need to wire up something else next week as well. But first of all, you'll notice that I installed heatsinks for the VVR Mosfet on both of the Trainwreck amps:After this was completed, I made the executive decision to cease sumultaneous work on both amps in order to complete one at a time from this point on. Because of the difference in power sections in the amps, I was trying to figure out plans for two different at the same time and this was becoming very non-productive. Too many decision had to be made regarding VVR wiring and placement and they are going to be completely different for each amp. Therefore, since I need Joe to reimburse me quickly for the parts for his Express (in order to pay my bills) I decided to finish that one first.
So, as you can see, I have now fully wired the PS board side of things and it is officially mounted. The cap stack as been glued down and is about to be wired as well. I am also almost finished wiring up the VVR PCB.
So, next I will wire up the cap stack and finish the power section and bias circuitry. I'll try to keep posting regularily now. My tendency at this point seems to be finishing quickly on a roll without taking more photos. So, I will resist the urge to priorotize finishing over documenting in this case.

More Organ stuff

I'm currently trying to wire up the Leslie connector kit into my M3.
I've run into the snag of not knowing which wires are for what going to the organ field coil speaker. 4 wires instead of the 2 that are found in modern Permanent Magnet Speakers.

Organ House

So, currently I have 3 organs: a Hammond M3, a Hammond L-112, and a Lowrey Fesitval. Then I have the 2 Leslie Cabinets stacked with their backs off at the moment. A 142 and a 25.

My Current Amps

Well, Here is the current progress of my Liverpool:
Here is my Traynor YGL-3a plugged into the closed back 2x12 at the bottom that holds a Veteran 30 and a G12H. Between them is the DC30 with a Celection Blue and a G12H:
And Here we have the JCM800 sitting on top of a 1x12 open backed cab with a Veteran 30, as well as a Single-Ended Combo called the Class Act, with a Jensen P12N speaker:

Shawn's Overdrive Special

I remember promising to post pics of the Dumble Clone that I built for Shawn with the cabinet that Shawn built for it all completed. Well, a week ago he cameout for my farewell potluck and service, and he made sure to bring his amp to play and to make sure that I would get a chance to post pics of it finally.
So, without further ado, here is Shawn with his amp:He used laminated pine boards and box-jointed(?) them together. I forgot to get a good pic of the joints. Oops.Here's the back and inside. That's a special ordered Weber 1265 speaker, which is supposed to compliment this amp well. Anyways, I gotta say that Shawn makes a very nice wood-finished amp cabinet.Here's one more pic for the road:

The 1962 Lowrey Festival and Leslie 25

Well, I finally wired my leslie 25 up to the Lowrey. I've had the leslie for about a year and a half, and have only used it with guitar amps so far, bypassing the power amp that is in it. Now I got to use the whole thing how it was meant to for the first time tonight. (If only I knew how to play keyboard, you would get more than a C chord in the youtube video).

So, Leslie cables are all over $100, so I spent $12 today on 6 meters of 7 conductor cable. I hard wired one end right into the connector chassis of the Leslie, and then took the socket that I bypassed and put it on the other end of the cable to plug into the organ.
I should also mention that today I fixed the organ in other ways too. I bought a new 6x8 pentode-triode tube to replace one that had died, (ruining any F# notes). I got the vintage Sylvania from an old store that I just discovered today called Voss Electronics. The old German guy there is hard of hearing but super nice, and I think that store has been there forever. There is some really cool old stuff that you can find there. The guy looks A LOT like my late Grandpa Kanwischer. Anyways, the new tube is at the far bottom right of this back plate of 80 tubes. Yes, I said 80! Look at this thing with the back cover off!!!:I also thought the old Alnico 12" Jensen speaker had a cone tear, but it turned out to be a small chunk of broken plastic from one of the flapper switches on the front. I grabed it and glued it back in its spot. Now, I'm only missing on flapper chunk.
Ok, here are my first couple movie clips I made on imovie. I know, I should have edited them.

Boards Populated

I don't know how this happened in the midst of all the business this week. I think I just started loading the boards with components whilst doing other things, and it just got finished. Anyways, the preamp and PS boards are all loaded. There's just a whole lot of wiring left on these amps to do.

The Best Candidate for Enquiro

I'd like to take a break from our regularly scheduled awesomeness, to make one more nonamp-related observation. I think Ryan Monson is the best candidate for Enquiro. I can't imagine someone else better suited.
Check him out:
http://ryanmonson.com/enquiro/

Heater Wires finished

Here's the latest progress on the Trainwreck Twins. The Power switch, Pilot Lamp, fuse socket, power receptacle and tube heater wires have all been wired now on both amps:You can't tell, but I also installed the 2 amp slow-blo fuses and the lamp bulbs. I guess the next step shall be to populate the preamp boards that I have already eyeletted.

First Post on the Trainwreck Twins

So, I finally have all the parts needed to make the last two amps. I am building these two models of Trainwrecks simultaneously. They are nonidentical twins because one is the Express for Joe, and the other is a Liverpool for me. I am very excited because this promises to be my favorite amp of all time. The Express is the more popular out of the two, but the Liverpool is an EL84 amp, and I prefer those sorts of power tubes by personal preference.

I began them quite a while ago. I had sourced all the parts from all over the place, trying to build the best. Crucial to Trainwrecks are the Outut Transformers with the correct primary impedance, so I ordered those from Toneslut. The Chassis' and Faceplates are from Ceriatone. Most of the components are from Mouser and Antique Electronc Supply. I got some Bourne's Pots from Apex, and turretboards from Watts Tube Audio.
Heres a picture of the board Material that I waited for 3 months to arrive. I have just finished drilling and installing the eyelets:
Don't ask why the pic is sideways. It turned thatway when I loaded to to blogger.
Here's shots of the chassis, with the tube sockets, speaker jacks, and transformers mounted. I have also wired up the output impedance selectors:

The Pure(?) Point-to-Point 18 Watt T-Rex

Well, the latest amp is well under-way. Turret-board material got lost in the mail(for over a month now), so in the end I decided to attempt my first all point-to-point amp. I guess this will make this one more "boutique". There's a few companies that will build "Point-to-point" allowing them to charge an extra few thousand dollars in cash more for the amp due to it having the most direct path for the signal and less wire, causing less loss of tone. I generally don't buy that it is necessarily any better, but I figured I would eventually try one. Besides, it may take more painstaking work, but it should still be faster than the 3 months that turretboards.com will make me wait (to be sure) before they send me another shipment of what I ordered back in October.

The Dimentions of this Chassis are: 6" x 2 1/2" x 20".
The 4 mounting bolt holes are 1/2" from the two outside edges of the chassis.

So, what follows is documentation of the build, with most recent progress going to be at the bottom this time.
I did quite a bit before taking the first picture. Here we have all the Power Transformer mounted and wired up (including heater wires to all the tube sockets). Obviously the sockets, cap can, ac mains, fuse, and Transformers are mounted.You can see from this pic that the front faceplate is on, as well as a couple pots, inputs, switches and pilot lamp. (I had to drill out the hole in order to make the Fender Lamp fit). Don't worry, I bought a special $40 unibit especially for that sort of work. Ya, the fender lamps are by far the prettiest and you can put in different colors of jewels. Josh will have his choice from the colors that I bought, but I'm starting with the amber. (I think it looks classy). He might prefer blue to tie it in with his guitar color.Now we have the rest of the pots on the top panel installed. You can also see that the standby and power switches are wired up, as well as the pilot lamp. The other key element installed is the infamous VVR circuit wired to the chassis floor. Yes, that's right; A Variable Voltage Regulator. This will allow that cranked old-school all-tubes-distorting tone while scaling back the power to the B+ rail. In other words it sounds great at even less than ear-piercing volumes when you turn down the knob labeled MV on the top panel. You can treat it like a master volume control, but it works much more like a real "Master" volume should when you think of the term. It just turns down the volume. It's generally a pretty easy circuit to add to cathode biased amps. Cheers to Dana (UR12) for sharing it with the world. I've purchased a couple of his PCB versions for fixed biased amps, but this terminal strip version will be more appropriate for this P2P amp. I should also mention that the design of the 18 Watt T-Rex is actually the brainchild of Dana's brother Richie. That would be a neat family to be a part of.
From this picture you can see some more progress. The Output transformer is wired up (wires coming through the grommets in the chassis floor). As well, you can see that the top panel "Official Marshall Knobs" have been installed. Official Marshall knobs feel cheaper than I expected, but it is the right look for this amp. Maybe some heavier feeling ones can be found some day if Josh chooses. The top left corner of the pic also shows that the output jack (to speaker) is also installed. I just used the 8ohm tap. I couldn't find or decide on a place for an impedent selector switch, so for now, if Josh wants to try out different speaker configurations with external speakers, a different tap from the OT will have to be soldered to the output jack instead. (It's pretty quick and painless, just takes the amount of time for a soldering iron to heat up.) The switch on that bottom wall is the Negative feedback switch. You can switch between 2 levels of NFB; it's basically a presence control. The next picture will have to show evidence of a real commitment to the Point to Point Design because the remaining components and wiring would have been a part of the Turretboard...As you can see, the cabinet construction is also underway over in sunny Revelstoke. This time the cab will be of made of the lighter weight laminated pine instead of our previous Birch Plywood.I should hopefully make some progress on the amp portion today. I have purchased a number of Terminal strips for the wiring, and I am still wrestling with exactly how to lay this out...Well, after a long day of staring and sketching, I barely got anything done. Planning this layout turned out to be a much bigger and more difficult task than I planned. But I eventually got a start. Here is the power tubes wired up somewhat with the B+ and filter caps. I can't seem to find the 2 Watt 2.2K resister that I thought I ordered. Gonna need one from somewhere...Well, we have a 2.2K 2Watt Resister coming inn the mail from Abbotsford. They traveled down there just to find one for me. In the meantime, I have continued the work. It is progressing slowly. I drill holes to mount terminal strips as I need them and vacuum out the aluminum filings as we go. I guess I am slowly working my way left from the right side of the schematic. Or, you could say I am working my way right, wiring up the tubes. I finished my first preamp tube now. I still, wonder whether this qualifies as pure point to point, because I somehow imagine that there must be possibly shorter distances from each point to point than what I have achieved. I doubt this is any improvement from the eyelet board method and the eyelet boards sure would be easier. Well, maybe this will look cooler. It definitely won't look tidier.Got a little bit more done today. I moved one cap, and did a bit of attaching wires to the pots on the T-Rex side. Check out my special new shielded cable that I got last time I was in Calgary; especially made for audio. Much nicer to work with than dissecting patch cords... Today I also took a break to fix up the Top Boost Channel of my DC30. I put some of the new shielded cable in that too.Progress is painstakingly slow. However, I just finished my second last preamp tube. Now we can move onto the final tube wiring (which includes the tonestack and input wiring). I had to get creative when the 2.2k 2watt resistor arrived from Abbotsford today. That is because it was a 22k resistor instead. So, I wired up 2 separate 1watt 4.7K resisters in parallel instead. It's a real MacGuyver move, but it gives me a 2.3K resistance(easily close enough for the part of the amp it's in) and the current would be split between them giving them a total power handling capability of 2watts. So, it should be perfectly all right. Everything is above code.So, today I got the rest of the front of the amp wired up; as in the input jacks and the components and wiring off of the front pots. All that remains now is wiring up the first preamp tube. I plan to finish it tonight. Then we will see if the thing works.Meanwhile, cabinet construction has resumed in Revelstoke. This is the Tolex being prepared for the perimeter of the cabinet.Bryant continued to work on it from this point today (Christmas Day). Next, he started wrapping and gluing the tolex around the edges.The wrapping and gluing of the edges are completed around the front of the cab now.The amp building part is hopefully completed. I manged to plug it in in order ot have it squeal at me. Thanks to all my online reading, I automatically knew that that would caused by the Output Transformer Secondary wires having been swapped. I quickly swapped the wires on the two power tubes and tried the amp again.Due to a baby sleeping in the house, I could really not check the amp properly. There is guitar signal coming through though. I tried the amp through a speaker cab face down on my bed with a pillow over the back, and with the Variable Voltage Regulator as far down as it would go. Still, I dared not try for very long. We have guitar sound, but the question will be how good does it sound? is there hum? is there enough gain? does everything work properly? I will have to try taking it to church in the morning to check everything more throughly. There still may be some chop-sticking to come. Next will be the troubleshooting and tweaking.
Well, I spent Sunday afternoon playing around with wiring and placement (mostly the VVR pot and NFB switch), I headed to Revelstoke on Monday. We continued to work on both the electronics and cabinet for three more solid days before finishing the job. Here is the end results.
It's a pretty versatile amp. I think now, that if I could only have one amp, it would be something like this, if not this exact model. 2xEL84 amps seem to be my taste. It does nice rich cleans to ripp-roaring Marshall Distortion. I'd easily trade in my handwired JCM 800 for this. This one is definitely a keeper--for Josh.

Those Pins are crooked

I don't know what prompted me to pull the rectifier tube out of the box that I bought for Josh's 18 watt build (pics coming soon), but I took a look.
I was not pleased to see that the pins were not straight. This did not make me happy. The EZ81 is not a crazy-expensive tube, but who wants to blow $12 on a tube that can't be used? I tried to straighten a pin and it broke and fell right out. That hurt, until I realized that it was an unused pin (only about 5 pins on the rectifier tube is actually used), so it's not so bad. Now that I know not to touch the pins individually, I still wonder if the tube will be able to be coerced into its socket. I will seek online advice.
Update:
Well, I managed to coerce the tube into an unmounted socket and it seemed to straighten the pins enough to get in (without losing any!). I think we should be safe. I guess crooked pins are not supposed to be any big deal.

Channel 1 Volume issues

***********Updated (see bottom)************
So, ever since I did my VVR installation on my DC30, I have had some issue with my channel 1 volume not working right. There is a severe lack of gain. I never really use that channel so I put off fixing it. I want to get everything set right now though.
I am supposed to do these additions to that channel after the VVR is installed:

This type installation will turn down all of the voltages in the amp as you adjust the power control on the board. This kind of implementation will require you to move the 1meg resistor on your guitar input jack and the installation of a cap between the input and the grid of the first tube. You also need to install another 1meg resistor and cap between the vol control and the grid of the tube it feeds. See the schematics below.
While you can play with the value of the caps a good rule of thumb is to start out with the same size caps that are feeding the signal from your phase inverter to the grids of the power tubes. This should not cause any change in tone compared to the original tone of the amp. Some people just use .1uf. The reason for the changes are because at low voltages the signal on the grids of the two preamp tubes leaks a little dc voltage onto the guitar pot and vol control when the signal hitting these grids drive them more positive than the bias voltage applied. In simple terms it removes the scratchiness from the guitar and amp vol controls.

Now, this is fine and dandy for a trainwreck schematic, but now we need to know if it should be different for my DC30 channel 1, because something is wrong as is. I did the red stuff to channel 1:
***********Update************
There didn't seem to be any problem with the circuit design after all. I replaced the shielded cables I was using with some new stuff that I got, and double-checked all solder connections involved. It seems to work very well now. Channel 1 does still have lower gain than the EF86 channel, but I think that is just the nature of the design. It will come out loud and clear now and you can turn it up. Both channels have very nice and uniquely different tones. I love this amp!

Current Progress of Shawn's Overdrive Special

Finished!!!
Unfortunately, I did it again. I try to document a build but everytime, around the two-thirds mark, I get too excited to finish and stop taking pictures. Sorry everyone who might have wanted to watch the progress. I'll try again for Josh's amp.Filter caps wired up.
Relays are wired up

7) Once I figured that the pots were on to stay, I figured I would finish off the look of the front panel by putting the chicken-head knobs on. Oh ya, the pilot light is wired up now too.


6) I got the copper buss wire mounted to all the pots on the front panel. It took a while. I mounted some of the components on those pots and switches while they were still accessible.


5) I got a lot accomplished since the last picture. The Power Transformer is fully wired up. And most of the back wall of the chassis has been installed and wired up now too. Also, we have a couple more eyelet boards mounted on the other side wall of the chassis behind the power transformer.


4) Some components have been added to the tube sockets while they are easy to get at. Notice how this amp includes some bias test points and a bias pot that will be accessible from the outside of the amp(very nice and handy). Also notice that some components and an eyelet board are now installed on that end side wall of the chassis.


3) Ok, now we have the filament (tube heater) wires all twisted and connected up to the tube sockets. For me, it's one of the more annoying parts of amp building, so good thing it is one of the first steps. It sure is a lot easier wiring up the tube sockets before all the back panel is full and blocking the way.


2) The Next thing I did was to mount the transformers and the tube sockets, as well as a few other pieces that mount to the bottom of the chassis towards the back of the amp. The back of the amp is facing me in this picture.


1) Here is the Start of the project. A blank chassis.

Joe's Head Cab Choices

So, here are some rough ideas for Joe to pick his choices. This is the general design of the Head cab:Sorry about my Microsoft Paint skills but the corners should look more like this:
What do you think of the tolex and piping design I came up with for the front? We have some of that Maroon coloured Vinyl that we haven't used yet, that's why I thought of it. You could choose different colors of Tolex but they would cost you more (Maybe an extra $20 -$40 or so).
If you want to choose your own tolex besides black or Maroon, check out this site: Tolex
Make sure that you notice that there is a 2nd page of choices and you can click on the individual pictures to see them closer.
So, the main Question right now is the selection of a type of knob. What do you think Joe?:

Tilt-Back Legs for DC30

It seems like favoritism, but Thanksgiving rolled around again, and who should be chosen to receive a gift, but my DC30 Combo. It seems this first amp that I built gets all the upgrades; removable casters, doubled coupling caps, a Variable Voltage Regulator, and now some Tilt-Back Legs.I was always leaning this amp back on a box to keep it pointed up at me at the front of the stage. I had bought an amp stand, but I needed the amp to be in front of me pointed back and a stand was just too much in the way for that. It needed a low profile.
It seemed that the only Tilt-Back Legs that I could buy were made by Fender (with their name engraved on them), or a company called "Adam", that I didn't much like the look of. So, with a bit of help from the guys on Guitars Canada Forum (especially "Big White Tele"), I set out to make some legs this holiday weekend.
I stopped in Canadian Tire in Fernie on my Way to Revelstoke for Thanksgiving and picked up a 3' piece of aluminum for about $12. I hack-sawed it in half into 2 18" pieces and then ground the corners off with my Dad's Grinder.
I then used a palm sander to try and make the aluminum looked more brushed.
Then this morning I used steel wool and paint Thinner, and then chrome polish and a cloth, and then paper towel to get it all clean and shiny.
I stopped at Home Hardware in Cranbrook on my way home today and picked up some sort of special furniture bolts that work perfectly for this and some nuts and washers. Here's the inside:
Well, it's time to put the back back on the amp. Thanks everyone for your help! I am quite pleased.

Make into a Bass Amp?

Update:
It turns out that no messing with the amp is necessary to make it appropriate for bass. It sounds great on it's own. It's my most powerful tube amp with the most headroom. However, it is the speaker cab that was the limiting factor. Fortunately, a week and a half ago on a trip to Long & McQuade in Calgary I found a used Ampeg 4x10 bass cab for an absolutely screaming deal (About 60-70% off!). It is nice and rugged and sounds amazing!
Originally, I was wondering how can we make the Basic channel of this Traynor YGL-3a head into something more voiced for Bass guitar?

VVR Installations

It's probably been almost a month since I did the two VVR installations, but it's about time I talked about it.
First I did the installation in Shawn's 5e3 Tweed Deluxe that I built for him. It did take several hours because it was my first time and things are sort of tight. I reworked the grounding scheme and moved the Standby and Power switches into one 3-position switch.
Anyways, here is a picture of the finished product before putting the amp back in the cabinet:
The VVR is controlled by the black knob (I later put on a cream colored one to match the rest). Anyways, the blue mess of wires the connects to other components behind that black knob all are part of the VVR circuit. It's not quite as complicated as it may look. a main component is that square black transistor that is screwed down to the chassis to keep it from getting too hot.
Here's a closer look at the VVR:Anyways, the Tweed Deluxe was a prime candidate for VVR. The voltage for the entire amp is scaled down by the knob to bring multiple tone options at whichever volume you want. Before, he had to play it pretty loud to get that famous tweed distortion. So, this is now a truly versatile amp. Shawn is pleased.

I proceeded to go and install VVR in my DC30 the next day as well. I replaced the Master volume circuit and faceplate position to also scale the whole amp. I never used to use the Master Volume knob, because I didn't like the way it degraded the tone as I turned it down. The VVR now works much better and I use it all the time. Another success! Horay for VVR!

My Sisters Contribute to an Amp

So, as I have mentioned before, I changed my Vibrochamp into a new sort of High Gain Offering. I ripped the guts out and made it into the Schematic called the Class Act. I made that during my holidays this summer. It is now paired up with a Celestion g12H speaker (12") and sounding great.
I also made a new faceplate out of wood for it. I stained and varnished a faceplate out of a piece of ash. There remained the problem of how to do lettering though. In the end, my sister Tamara came to the rescue and suggested embossing. My older sister, Melissa, had recently given her some new letter stamps for her scrap-booking and card making ventures. Tamara used these and with the special embossing powder and heat gun, she made the words. Here are some pics of the finished amp re-assembled with the new faceplate. The goal was to match the ash faceplate with the Purpleheart strip on the cainet that my dad made. It seems to have come out pretty close.
Hey, close enough for Rock & Roll (as they say).

VVR: The Greatest thing ever?

I've come familiar with the Term "Variable Voltage Regulator" in recent months as the ideal way to scale back power/volume in Trainwreck styled amps. Keep the nice amount if interactions between parts of the amp and nice distortion at a lower volume. Sounds like a dream, and the guys at Amp Garage seem to love it.
Today I found out how it is done and it looks not too complicated to do in a Cathode Biased Amp. Here is the schematic fitted into an 18Watt.
Here's the basic layout that someone posted using a terminal strip:
Oh, and I don't know if the link will work for everyone, but here is a link to a clip of a modded Valve Junior Amp trying out different tubes and the fourth time of the riff is played with the VVR on full attenuation. Notice how quiet it is, but still great tone!

Webcor 6V6GT with EF86 and ECC83 pres & VVR