Pickin’ and Grinnin’

[Ulu]

Well I have finished that little amplifier and sent it onto it’s new owner.


In the meantime I have repaired these two guitars and I’m starting on the third.



This one came to me as a partially assembled kit. We’ll see if I can make a decent Guitar from it.


So here it is with a new set of Ernie Ball Primo slinky’s, a new output Jack, everything correctly installed except one small item.

OK two. It needs the plastic back spring cover and it needs a little spring in the whammy bar.

 

[Ulu]

I got that Stratocaster in tiptop shape and somebody brought me this nice Jay Turser clone of a Gibson SG guitar.


I’ve never particularly lusted after those guitars, but I remembered that Frank Zappa switched from the Les Paul to the SG, and now I feel I know why, after playing both myself.

Also some new phonographs fell into my possession: a lovely but worthless low power Webcor Maestro for $20, and the powerful Newcomb TS-16 for $275.

The Webcor is going to give up it’s input, jack, rubber feet, carry handle and hardware for the Newcomb amp project.




The amplifier and speaker in this are not only very low power but they are a very strange design without a power transformer. It relies on the windings of the electric phonograph motor to provide current.



This might be fun to build a vacuum tube distortion screamer pedal.



Now the Newcomb 16” Transcription Phonograph Project is much more interesting. This has adjustable low and high gain input channels. It sounded great with a guitar right out of the box, either high output or low output pick ups.



It also has real tone controls, a 10 watt class AB amplifier, and a 12 inch speaker that still works great. It has a real old fashion power transformer from 1952.



It closes up into a neat suitcase. These were popular portable units for radio stations, bingo callers, square dance callers and people who needed to run a phonograph and a microphone at the same time.



It will actually power two of these speakers but I don’t have the extension speaker that you could purchase with it.



This has all been sitting around in an antique store for a long time, and it was very dirty but fortunately had no evidence of mice. At some point in its life it had been treated to all new capacitors and some new resistors as well.

Here is the amplifier all stripped out and cleaned up with a steel bottom and wood sides added to the chassis.



Now I just need to mount the handle and the rubber feet, and put a cage over the tubes.

 

[Caperguy99]

Great thread!

 

[Ulu]

The Webcor feet and handle go on the Newcomb amplifier.


I use a powder coated steel desk organizer as the cage, and part of another for the back.



I put an aluminum channel inside for support, and it screws into the heavy wood ends. I used blue cabinet screws because I didn’t have any chrome.



I made little hinges, so the cage will flip forward for service.

 

[Ulu]

I realized today that this newest project guitar is number 20 (if I count a couple that need major work.)



This one got a custom pickguard and different pickups. I need to replace the setup strings, polish it, and put on the knobs.




This is a PVC platten from a 1995 Mustek scanner. It had yellowed to a lovely ivory color on the front, while the hidden back remained white.

I have a dedicated bench in the house for music gear now.



Actually a whole dedicated room.





This was a result of unplanned remodeling. One night our roof leaked and we had to clear out the “office” room and repair the ceiling. I gave that room to my wife and moved all my stuff into one room.

I gained a lot of space in the deal, and my wife was forced to get rid of things we didn’t need. Win-win!

But it was a lot of work to remodel and my wife got a new desk in the deal.

This is after plaster, primer, & 3 coats of paint.


Same room in a panoramic shot, now showing my wife’s Barbies, stuffed dogs, etc.

 

[Ulu]

I repaired this little 15 band stereo equalizer and it works great.

I was really in great shape and it didn’t cost me anything. I got it in trade for fixing an amplifier with a blown fuse and a broken switch.

One of the little sliders was broken and I rebuilt the black plastic with a little white inlay.

You can tell because it’s not exactly the same. You can still see my file marks.


But it looks OK and it works fine. It will boost up to 12 watts as a preamp.

 

[Ulu]

I decided my pedal board needed modification, and so I removed the looper and put it on its own riser.



This allowed two more pedals on the board and makes it easy to R&R the stereo plug sets.



I couldn’t read the display so I tilted it a lot more.



This is a heavy duty diskette case from 1990. I modified it slightly and put a lead block in the base for stability. I tapped the aluminum case for 4 screws and attached the looper.



This won’t improve my heavy metal tones but it stays put under pressure.

I rerouted the power wire through the little slots in the steel, eliminating the previous zip ties.

 

[Ulu]

I’ve been messing around with some portable guitar amplifiers and I’m building them into some large cigar boxes.



This one is 5 W per channel driving a stereo array. It’s so close together you could not possibly get any imaging, but it also is bridged to mono on the input jack, being a guitar amplifier.


The amplifier came from a set of computer speakers and cranks out a massive 3 W per channel. The speakers came from two different computers and a stereo television.



That one requires a wall wart (or power brick) to run it. It has an input jack, headphone jack, volume control, and on/off switch.





I’m building this one from a Bluetooth receiver with 5 W per channel and it will power from AC or USB 5 V.



Two of the speakers I’m showing are from me computer and the third one was from a Sony radio.


This is currently wired as a stereo pair with a center “ghost channel”.

A ghost is basically a speaker that runs off the left and right channel’s positive leads, reproducing only sounds which are different between the two. In other words it doesn’t produce any information that is already reproduced by both the left and right channels together.

Whatever the difference is between the left and right channels (Subtract one channel from the other electrically) that’s what it produces.

After testing this I think it can easily power more small speakers, and coincidentally I have some.

 

[Ulu]

The Don Elias cigar box

The amplifier is 5 W per channel stereo, and came from a set of Walmart computer speakers. The input is of course bridged to mono for Guitar amplification.


This has a 120 V power cord and just plugs in the wall.

 

[Ulu]

I got this dedicated Bluetooth amplifier, and a 120->5v filtered power supply, from a thrift store radio. I put them into a plastic photo cube with a couple vent holes.


I set it up as a dedicated Bluetooth amplifier for my phone, at the guitar bench.


It powers my 5 1/2” Sony 2-way speakers quite well.