This was my first "commissioned" amp. A wonderfully talented local musician wanted a small wattage amp to play both harmonica and guitar. "Something like a hot rodded Champ",I believe is how he described it. I already had a wooden case from a Webcor reel to reel, and the carcass of the amp that had come inside it. It didn't look like much, but the transformers were good, and just the right size.

I purchased the aluminum chassis from a fellow in Missouri, if I remember right. First, I drilled the holes and installed the transformers, along with the "humdinger board".



The PT is underneath that nifty swifty board.



Wired up the cap cans, tested for shorts. I normally test the amp on the light bulb tester at each step of the process. If I did make a mistake, sure makes it easy to find.



With the Belton digital reverb module installed. That board has undergone several "refinements" since this one. They all sound the same. I put the Brick in between 2 valves just like you would a reverb pan. It gives you that subtle "wet/dry" sound very close to the real thing! And, fewer parts, less weight.



The turret boards. I re-used boards from another project I had disassembled and rebuilt. Hence the extra "vent" holes.



A couple components installed.



The "power rail board" is the long skinny one on the left, against the end of the chassis. This was a very small enclosure, so I tried to keep big volts away from small volts. I've since used that on other builds where I wouldn't really have had to. It makes for a nice quiet amp, in my opinion.



The circuit board populated and ready to wire up.



Installed and wired.





The finished product. I didn't have a router at that time, so I cut the speaker hole with a jig saw. The square offset is the original vent for the fan. Apparently, those old RtoRs ran pretty hot.



I also wired up an external speaker jack, in case he wanted to plug into a Marshall stack. haha



Opened up and ready to play!





This project lead to several others....


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