Amp Repair Day: Time To Rock Out With My ... Amps

Admittedly, my title might be misleading.  It's true that I spent a day repairing my amps, but I didn't do anything hard, such as repairing the circuitry.  I have two amps that needed exterior parts repaired on them.  For this blog post I made sure to take lots of photos so everyone would know what I'm talking about.

First up is my Sunn Alpha 212-R amp.  This is the amp that I recorded my album with.  I'm partial to it since no other amp I've played has exactly, "my sound" like this one does.  This amp was built in 1977, so I've repaired/replaced a few things on it.  Lately I'd noticed the grill cloth was near the end of it's life.  So I decided to improve the grill cloth in a few ways.

First up is the "before" photo of my amp.

And here I have it laid out for repair.

Next I removed the grill.

You can see some of the dings here.

Here's the back of the grill.

Say, do you think they put enough staples in the corner?

Just kidding.  I understand why they did that.  Next came the fun, and by fun I mean tedious part.  Pulling out all the staples.  Again, it's not hard, just time consuming.

Boy, that has seen some wear hasn't it?

I bought the old style Marshall grill cloth to replace the old one.  I know purist would say I should replace the original grill cloth with an exact replica, but let's be honest, no amp is original.  Caps, resistors, and tubes are replaced all the time on amps. 

This amp has had a fair amount of work performed internally plus the speakers have been changed.  All in all it's a much better amp than when I bought it.  Since I'm going to keep this one until I die, I'm going to customize it the way I want.

Next it was time to staple the grill cloth on the grill.  Like I said before, it's not so hard as it is time consuming.

There, now that looks pretty nifty.  Let's install it on the amp.

Wow!  That looks even better than I thought it would.  I'm really happy with this.

So now it's time to move on to my next project.  My Laney GH-100-L amplifier head. 

Now there's a large backstory to this amp.  Luckily I wrote about it years ago when I bought it.  Here's the links:

New Broken Amp Day

New Broken Amp Day, Part 2

New Broken Amp Day, Part 3

The Amplifier is a Foot!

The short version of this story is that, I took a broken down Laney amp and got it working again.  However, there were two things I never got around to.  The first was finding a handle that was the right size.  The second was to put a vented backplate on the back of the amp.

First things first.  I took off the old Fender sized handle and installed a "British" style handle.

As you can see the Fender handle was too small.  It left no room for me to wrap my fingers underneath the handle.  So it came off, and the new one when on.

Well, that's the short version of the story.  The new handle wanted to fight me the whole way while installing it.  That, and the receiving piece on the underside of the amp wanted to come loose.  In the end I managed to get it working.

My next project was to install the mesh to protect the tubes.  As you can see the backplate is completely missing.

So I bought a "cut it yourself" mesh to fit.  It should be noted that the mess is insanely sharp, and cut my fingers completely up.  I was aiming to show a photo of my hands on here, but blogger.com might now allow it.  It might violate one of the rules on here, so I decided I'd just skip the gore.

My main point is that, if you ever aim to do this wear gloves.  Bite the bullet and wear gloves.  In the following photo you can see me measuring and preparing the mesh.

Here's the dry fit.  After a bit of fine cutting work it fit perfectly.

Now was time to install a few screws to hold the mesh.

Boom!  It was perfect!  So I finally completed what I aimed to do four and one-quarter years ago.  I want to note that all parts were bought from Mojotone.com.  They are expensive, but everything fit as it should.  I will say this, all parts were of high quality.  I doubt I'll have any problems with them in the future.

So I feel right.  I feel complete.  I managed to knock a few things off my "to-do" list that I'd been aiming to do for years.  Now it's time to rock out.  Yes, I should really be one of those guys who spends more time playing, than he does on the computer talking about playing.  Rock on everyone.

So I Finally Got Around To Cleaning The Driveway

Pressure washing.  I hate it.  We all know why.  I've written about this song and dance before.  However, in the 24 years we've been at this house the concrete driveway has only been cleaned once.  Back then acid was put down on the concrete, and then the dirt/gunk/grime was moved out to the drain by the pressure washer gun.  So the concrete never had a surface cleaner go to town on it.

Since I've worked in apartment maintenance I was shown how to use a pressure washer engine with a surface cleaner.  It looks like a giant vacuum for concrete.  But instead of sucking up things, it sprays water at a high pressure cleaning the concrete.  It's much faster, more efficient, and looks better than just using a pressure washer gun.

Back in November I said I would give a present that the whole family could benefit from.  So I volunteered to clean the driveway.  So why I am so late in doing so?  Well, the first plan was to buy a surface cleaner to go with the Simpson pressure washer we already own. 

However, it didn't make a lot of sense to buy a cheap one that was too small for the job.  We also didn't want to spend $350 on the big one that we would use once per decade.  I even tried looking at pawn shops, they were still costly for someone like me who wouldn't use one that often.

So I checked in with Home Depot's webpage, and it seemed they had plenty of surface cleaners to rent.  So I rented one for $31 plus tax for the day.  I did have to buy a converter for the water hose, but it's still much cheaper than buying a whole unit.

The pressure washing/surface cleaning isn't what takes the most time.  It's all the other stuff.  I was up at 7 AM, and renting from Home Depot before 9 AM.  By the time I made it back home I had to move hoses, get equipment out, mix cleaning chemicals, move vehicles, and move anything else that was on the driveway.  So that ate up a lot of time.

The driveway wasn't the only thing I cleaned.  I also cleaned outside the side door, around the A/C units, an outdoor tile area, and the back porch.  So you can see just how many areas I had to clean.

Here's the before photo of the concrete:

It's hard to tell what's a shadow and what part is dirt buildup so I took a "in the middle of cleaning" photo.

My only wish, is that, I had a stronger horsepower engine.  The ones I used at the apartment complexes were around 6000 PSI.  Our unit is 3100 PSI.  So it made cleaning much slower.  I didn't have any acid to put down, but I mixed up a robust mixture of Tide and Clorox.  It helps break up the grime.

Everyone was in a hurry to move their vehicles back so I wasn't able to take a good "after" photo.  That, and it was already late into the evening.

As you can tell from my shadow the sun was starting to angle over the west.  I quickly put everything back, and drove over to Home Depot to return the surface cleaner.  By the time I made it back home it was almost 6 PM.  I had been on the move for almost 11 hours. 

I know some folks call that a normal work day.  However, I only stopped for lunch and barely took any breaks.  I know I should have drank more water.  Here it is the next day, and my skin is extremely dried out.

But I'm glad the driveway is taken care of.  I guess I can call this the start of Spring cleaning?  Maybe I won't wait another decade before I clean it again.  But if I do, I'm sure going to use concrete acid.  There's no sense in working harder than I should.

New Guitar Day: Epiphone ES-335 Pro With a Lot Of Work

I bought an Epiphone ES-335 Pro at an extremely discounted price due to it having a cracked neck.  I knew I would have to put in a lot work to make it playable and to my liking.  However, due to being a full service luthier, I knew I could put in a lot of time to make it perfect.

For the longest time I had always wanted an Epiphone ES-335/Dot/Sheridan type of guitar.  So when I saw this one at such a reduced price I knew it was perfect for me.

First, let's start with the neck crack.  It wasn't a bad break at all.  But that also made it difficult to squeeze enough glue in the cracks.  The luthier I learned from taught me to use extremely hot water along with Titebond 2 to penetrate the cracks. I was also taught that if you have an additional person to help you out, use them.  In this case I put pressure on the neck, thus opening up the crack, while someone else forced glue into the break.  After that I could clamp it and let it set for 48 hours.

After I had made sure the neck was holding together I fret dressed the guitar.  I've found that anytime a neck is broken on a guitar to just go ahead and fret dress it.

The next step was to change out the pickups.  I'll admit, I always change out the pickups, but this time I had a dang good reason.  A month ago I wrote about my trip to the Orlando Guitar Expo.  It was there I bought a set of TV Jones Super'tron pickups.  So they were destined to go into this guitar.

Epiphone didn't make it easy.  First off, there has never been an access panel on the back of their thinline semi-hollowbody guitars.  Then, they decided to install push/pull pots on this guitar.  Again, not necessarily a bad thing, but it means that Epiphone decided to use plug type of pickup attachment.

That means instead of soldering the pickup to the pot, the pot now has a place for the pickup to be plugged in.  That makes it a pain to switch pickups since five small wires have to now be attached to the plug.  And that's for each pickup.  It's more time consuming than it is hard.  I just had to be careful of the wire codes.  Not all companies use the same wire color coding.

My next step was to create a bone nut.  This was one of the things that took me the longest time to learn.  However, over time I have become very adapt at creating them.  This one turned out perfect.

Next it was time for some easier things.  I installed locking straps.

I also decorated it with chrome knobs adorned with black pearl.

Since this is an archtop/hollowbody style of guitar I decided to string it up with a .012 - .053 gauge set.  Next it was time to set the guitar up.  Everything went smoothly, and I was anxious to hear what my "boutique" TV Jones pickups sounded like.

The bridge pickup is awesome. It reminds me quite a bit of a Bill Lawrence L-500-R.  However, the neck pickup is quite strange. It's overly bassy which is odd considering it's a filtertron pickup. To correct it I did something that I've never had to do.

I lowered the bass side quite a bit and raised the treble side very close to the strings. I could get away with it since it's a bladed pickup. That seemed to bring out the best in the pickup.

I still find it kind of strange that it's so unbalanced. Especially since it's a boutique pickup as well as a filtertron pickup.

Overall I have to say it's a pretty awesome guitar.  I hate that I've been wanting one for over a decade, and just got around to buying one.  But it's not like I don't have other guitars, right?  This one will keep me busy for a while.  

More Weirdness In Dreamland

For those who know me, know that I have some unusually weird dreams.  Most of the time I have flat out nightmares that are so violent they go beyond what an "R" rated slasher film would be.  A couple hours ago I had a dream that was unusual for me, in that, it was kind of weird and funny.

I was fishing with a very large fish net.  I'm referring to the kind used for scooping up trout and other fish when you are fishing with a rod and reel.  Anyway, I had a net that was at least eight feet long and about six feet wide.  It made catching fish really easy.

I was catching fish until I managed to catch something completely different.  I caught a poster, and it was a huge poster.  As I looked it over it looked like a cross between Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" album cover.

And the Beatles, "Abbey Road" cover.

But across the top a handwritten phrase and autograph were personally signed to someone.  It read:

You were the fastest thing that ever came out of me.
Love, 
Andy Kaufman

Yes, that's right.  This Andy Kaufman.

I realized (in my dream) that this was the poster I had released into the wild a year ago, and I had now found it again.  So I decided to take it home.  As I said it was huge.  I went to put it in the back of my truck, and realized I would have to fold it over.  Namely, since it was ten feet long.  It was as wide as my truck so it must have been around six feet wide.

There were also two friends of mine there, but I won't name them so as not to freak them out.  Overall I have to say it was one of my more unique dreams, it that, it wasn't violent, but it wasn't nerve-racking like a lot of the other dreams I had.  It was about a nice day spent fishing.  And don't we all just want to spend a nice day fishing?

I Made A Table!

Yes, my title is a reference to that awful Lou Reed/ Metallica song.

But no, I actually built a small altar table.  I was given a piece of oak that was pretty much a throwaway slab.  The cut of wood was near the outside of the trunk so it had not only sapwood, but part of the bark.  Here's how it started out.

Next, I cut it into an oval shape.  Here's the top.

And here is the bottom.

The edge of the slab, where the bark was, had a lot of wormholes.

I thought, "That's great!  It will make it more authentic."

Now that it was an oval shape, it was time to plain/grind/sand it into a table top.  In these photos I'm fast-forwarding past a lot of the boring sanding work.  So here's the top after all of that.

And here's the bottom.

Here are the final measurements.

29 inches long.

19 and a half inches wide.

And 2 3/4 inches thick.

And honestly it feels like it's about 50 pounds... at least.

Next, I had the help of my Father who turned small wooden legs on his lathe.  Again, we're fast-forwarding in the photos.  Here are the legs being glued into the table.

So once the glue had dried and set up, it was time to perform the fine sanding.  The table was already pretty smooth considering.  However, with the help of my electric hand sander the table became as smooth as glass.

Next came the finish work.  I've never been great at finish work.  In fact, I've been downright awful.  However, my Dad showed me a way to combine tung oil with a catalyst to give the table a beautiful finish.  Here's the photos after four coats of finish.

The tung oil finish really delivered what I wanted.  I didn't want a glossy finish, but I didn't want it to look bare either.  The tung oil gave me that perfect "in the middle" finish I was after.

I'm going to give the finish on the table plenty of time to completely harden.  After that it is going up for sale in a local shop.  I hope it'll be exactly what someone has always wanted.  Right now, it's off to the next table.  So I might be posting another blog about a table next month.