Jump to content


henrysb3

Member
  • Posts

    947
  • Joined

  • Last visited

About henrysb3

  • Birthday 11/30/1999

Converted

  • occupation
    realtired
  • Location
    on the move
  1. Which reminds me to unplug my wife's Dell laptop until we know if it's one of the self-igniting ones. As I don't anticipate needing an amp that powerful to use at home, and I don't plan on taking it (that aged eq,) on the road, so I'm probably going to sell the Silvertone and it's junk fraternal twin. I plan to sell it in a bundle "as is" and indicate it needs work. The construction seems pretty solid, but I know caps wear out, as do transformers, which can cause fires just as well as Dell laptops. I'd never played my strat thru the 1484 before, and it did sound kinda magical with the trem and light reverb. We had an Explorer with the dread Firestones, but were lucky I guess.
  2. Hi, Myles, I just replaced the power transformer in my Silvertone 1484 Twin Twelve with one from a junk 1484. It's been years since it's played, and when I powered it up and plugged into channel one, nothing happened except a very loud hum. In channel two, plugging in brought the hum down and everything seemed to work, though it seemed more distorted than I remember. It was sweet distortion, though, kind of a nice surprise. Both the reverb and trem worked as before. Then I got a surprise I wasn't expecting. I brushed my forearm against the high E string and got jolted with a definite shock. I had socks on my feet and apparantly stepped on the concrete between the carpet scraps in my basement, good enough ground to zap me. Could this be leaky caps? I wanted to replace most of the caps when I did the xformer, but decided that I couldn't put them in the budget at the moment. I have some spare tubes and have tried swapping the preamp section one by one, but channel one continues to hum badly with no signal. Thanks, Henry
  3. Myles, I have a Pilotone hi-fi amp that my dad and I assembled in the fifties, before stereo. It's got two 12AX7's and two 6V6's, a 12AU7,6C4, and 5Y3GT. There are four controls: volume, treble, bass and "Equalizer", which I take to be inputs - FOR, LP, NAB, AES, RIAA, RADIO, AUX I and AUX II. I pulled the tubes years ago and packed them in something soft and boxed up the amp. It's starting to intrigue me, especially with the preamp and power tube combination that's found on lots of nice guitar amps. I opened the bottom plate and saw that Dad and I did a fairly workmanlike soldering job. I remember it worked fine when we hooked it up to our Garrard turntable and a Jensen 12" speaker that was mounted directly to a hole cut in the knotty pine paneling of our basement. I have no idea how many times "Heartbreak Hotel" played thru this setup. Must have driven Dad a little nuts realizing his contribution to the "that racket", as he called it. I'm now older than he was when we put this kit together. The inputs are RCA jacks, with trim pots for hum balance, phono level and phono load. There are several speaker load options in back. I thought this might be a neat little project to use with some sort of direct box to get a correct level into the AUX input. I realize the caps are probably dry and the power cord is history. I think these were kind of on the same level as Dynaco, with quality components. I wouldn't be taking it on the road. Were these amps designed to be so clean that instruments couldn't "bloom" in sound when driven? Should I have a good psychologist on hand? BTW, Myles, your are a prince for your patience. Henry
  4. Thanks for your quick responses. I'm feeling more energized about the project now. Other than the modification on the gift amp, there is one cosmetic difference between the two: my original head has a cast or milled aluminum face plate, where the controls are mounted, while the other, though looking similar, has two pieces of sheet metal joined together to hold the switches, inputs and pots. The solid aluminum plate is more substantial than the other, probably newer and cheaper model. I bought the amp in the late sixties/early seventies as a package deal. The other part of that package was a '66 Custom Tele. I just got it out for some twang to spank-start my day. For all you vets out there, thanks. And a special thanks to those in the Second Marine Division who helped my dad get back from Guadalcanal. I miss him. Henry
  5. I still have my first amp - a Silvertone Twin Twelve 1484. Several years ago, the power transformer did a melt-down in our drummer's basement, and I ran out and bought a small (solid state) Crate chorus amp. The Silvertone went into storage as a future project. I removed the xformer and marked the leads, but hit some dead ends looking for a new one until a friend who has a guitar shop gave me another nonworking 1484 head. It looks like someone tried to mod it, as one of the input jacks had been replaced with some kind of pot. This may have been an attempt to get some kind of preamp distortion, because this amp stays clean until you really crank it. I think it's probably around 50 watts - two 6L6GC's, two preamp tubes I don't recall off the top of my head and four 12AX7's. I think one of those runs the tremelo, which is a very cool sounding trem. If I go about replacing the transformer, I think I should get new caps and maybe some other components. I hesitate to take the transformer from the unknown amp, as I might just have the same problem sooner than later. In rebuilding the original, I may be able to troubleshoot the gift one. I downloaded a schematic from the net, and have some skills with a multimeter and soldering iron. My questions are: Is there a good source for this kind of transformer? Is this amp worth rebuilding? I thought this project could make a kind of neat thread on this forum, but I need to get my digital camera skills together. I have web space for photos thru my ISP that I've never used. Thanks, Henry
×
×
  • Create New...