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Heritage Owners Club

Early 50s Silvertone and a few friends


Rude Dog

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Posted

Here are my amps, quite the muttly crew!

 

width=600 height=450http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q304/RSTIII/IMG_5090.jpg[/img]

 

width=600 height=450http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q304/RSTIII/IMG_5092.jpg[/img]

 

width=600 height=450http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q304/RSTIII/IMG_5093.jpg[/img]

 

width=600 height=450http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q304/RSTIII/IMG_5094.jpg[/img]

 

There' a Valve Junior behind the Slvertone too, but you can't really see it.

 

Woof!

Posted
No love for the ugly ducklings?   :'(

 

Plenty of love here for vintage (yes, ugly duckling) amps! :-*

 

How do they perform?  Tone reports please.

 

Have you ever noticed the interesting smells that old amps (and tube radios) have?

Posted

Thanks, That Silvertone is a 1x15. 2x6L6, a couple 12AX7s, a 6SJ7 (6SN7 maybe) and a 5Y3 rectifier

 

It's a screamer! no crystal cleans; all warm and woody. Has the nicest natural overdrive.

I bought it about 12 years ago. I had got a Mesa Boogie Subway Blues from a Sam Ash, it started making noises so I brought it back to get a replacement and this amp had just come in. I plugged it in and immediately got the sounds that were churning around in my head.

Well, I didn't end up with another Subway Blues  :)

 

It does have that funky ol' smell.

 

The little black one is a 1960s Kay 703 model with a little 8in speaker. At one point I thought a Blues Jr. was going to be exactly what I wanted in a "lower wattage" amp. I tried one out & liked it; then walked to another shop that has a lot of used gear and they had 3 of these funky old Kay amps and this little one sounded amazing. So I blues junior was not to be.

 

The head in the homemade pine cab is a Frenzel 5E3 plus (or something like that). not really like a tweed deluxe, it came with 6L6s and has a Bassman tone stack & 5U4 rectifier. I love it, does the clean/slightly overdrive/ride the guitar's volume pot really well.

 

The Carmen Ghia is awesome.

 

And I like the Epi Valve Jr too - these are such a great bang for the buck.

Posted

Say Dog, from a cursory view, it appears you cleaned out the local garage sale.  From your last post, it appears you have a working insight to the circuits and knew what you were after.  That's Cool!  I admire people that can see through the marketing fog and find what they are after.  Since we don't have Mojo points, I'll just spank your karma.

 

Have you played with the circuits?  A modest mod perhaps?  The Epi cleans up real pretty with only slight changes.

 

I too am looking forward to a tone report! ;D

Posted

Is the speaker a Jensen alnico? A good rule of thumb with old amps that don't have a standby switch, and use a 5Y3 rectifier, is to get yourself a 6087/5Y3GTB. These are slow warm up rectifiers and help save your power tubes by allowing the voltage they are recieving to slowly rise when you hit the 'ON" switch. Another tube that's a bit more expensive but warms up even slower is the Bendix 6106. Here's a shot of my '60 Martin 112. It's circuit is like a tweed Deluxe 5E3 but the transformers are MUCH BIGGER.

 

width=600 height=450http://img.photobucket.com/albums/b376/slider313/martin2.jpg[/img]

  • 2 weeks later...
Posted
Say Dog, from a cursory view, it appears you cleaned out the local garage sale.  From your last post, it appears you have a working insight to the circuits and knew what you were after.  That's Cool!  I admire people that can see through the marketing fog and find what they are after.  Since we don't have Mojo points, I'll just spank your karma.

 

Have you played with the circuits?  A modest mod perhaps?  The Epi cleans up real pretty with only slight changes.

 

I too am looking forward to a tone report! ;D

 

Thanks for the Karma!

 

I really try to use my ears and hands, and not my eyes or preconceptions when choosing equipment; though I do like funky lookin' amps...

I haven't monkeyed with any of the circuits. Sadly, I don't know how to use a soldering iron. A friend replaces the odd filter cap that goes bad.

 

All that being said, I'm seriously considering selling my Carmen Ghia to partially fund the purchase of a 1957 Gibson ES 225 that's for sale locally. A friend's borrowing it to see if he wants to buy it. It'll be sad to see it go, but that's the way it goes sometimes.

 

I played it for about 15-20 minutes, and man is that thing awesome and I'm having a serious GAS attack - I don't know that I've played a guitar that has made me into a fiend like this 225.

Posted
Is the speaker a Jensen alnico? A good rule of thumb with old amps that don't have a standby switch, and use a 5Y3 rectifier, is to get yourself a 6087/5Y3GTB. These are slow warm up rectifiers and help save your power tubes by allowing the voltage they are recieving to slowly rise when you hit the 'ON" switch. Another tube that's a bit more expensive but warms up even slower is the Bendix 6106. Here's a shot of my '60 Martin 112. It's circuit is like a tweed Deluxe 5E3 but the transformers are MUCH BIGGER.

 

width=600 height=450http://img.photobucket.com/albums/b376/slider313/martin2.jpg[/img]

 

That's a beauty, and thanks for the tip!

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