I fixed an amp yesterday...

However it was easy. A silverface Champ had begun to give me an ugly distortion and notes died an ugly death that sounded like a bad noise gate. I got some advice from our friend Ampfixer. I went against my gut and checked the speaker first...was the speaker. I had a little trouble with the connections. I have a tweed champ clone I built but the speaker is wired to a 1/4" plug/jack. The SF uses an RCA plug/jack. I have lots of parts, wires, etc so I rigged something from the SF speaker out to the tweed speaker and have wonderfulness again. I sat and played "I Looked Away" from Layla (and the intro from FREE's Fire and Water) for about 30 min, this amp is SO sweet. It is a true "closet Classic" NOS. I had seen it in a customers house for 25 years. They had bought it for their daughter who used it a couple of times, then it sat in the closet. She finally gave it to me a few years ago. I have two NIB Weber Sig 8 speakers, one alnico, one ceramic. I think I am going to put the alnico in it. Maybe build another tweed champ and put the ceramic in it. I prefer ceramics in tweeds.
This has gotten me back to building... I have another SF Champ that needs work, an old Stewart that runs 2 x 50L6 power tubes with 2 x6 speakers in a double TV front... I have it out to finish up on. I stopped all this when we moved about 6 years ago. I forgot how much I love it. I also have a tweed Deluxe clone that is almost finished but it isn't true to the classic 5e3, I am using a hotter PT and a bandmaster OT... I was going to drop the voltage with a zener diode but... I think I am going to leave it HOT. I have three tweed Deluxe cabs, two tweed Champ cabs, a tweed 1 x 10 cab, lots of speakers... so I'm going to get back into it.
I love amps! Will try to post some pics and clips soon.
Gotta find my nameplates ETOWAH
 
It is funny how you can drift away from something that you love t do and forget how much fun it is. How does that happen? I guess it is just life.
 
J