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Here are some pics of my very first amp build. I wanted a vintage Fender tube amp and couldn't afford one so I built this one. (In retrospect, the time and money put into this was prolly more).

It's a blackface Vibrolux Reverb with some slightly modded tone stacks and 8-Ohm output as opposed to 4-Ohm. The only thing not yet completed are the faceplates.

The entire thing was made from scratch.. the chassis is 14 gauge steel that I had a friend bend for me. The circuit board is cut from an old fiberboard drum case I had lying around. My dad helped me build the cabinet.

It's full of mistakes and re-do's but it sounds wonderful and it was an awesome learning experience. I've used it in several shows and it has performed flawlessly, although the next one will be MUCH better. I've got a list of design changes and fabrication changes for the next go around.

I had no idea how tubes worked before I took this project on, and reading this forum was one place that I was able to acquire a wealth of knowledge. Thanks to you all.

Check it out here if you like:

http://s1135.photobucket.com/albums/m632/zebrostripe/Zebrolux%20Amp/

fantastic, i love photojournals of projects.....one thing, when you drilled those holes for the dowels, didn't the bit want to knock chunks out? happened to me on a cab recently

We predrilled holes into another piece of wood and clamped it to the cab.. we then drilled the holes with a hand drill after the joint had already been glued and dried. We were pretty worried that because the dowels would be so close to the edge, and since we'd already gone over the edges with the router, that there wouldn't be enough wood on top to hold on, but we got lucky. Next time we'll run the router AFTER we put in the dowels. : )

Thats a terrific looking build.

It's good to see someone do a scratch build for a first amp build instead of all the kits everyone builds now.

I really like the cabinet work, I can see you and your Dad have that part covered and the Tolex looks very professional.

Now like everyone else, as soon as you finish one you are already thinking about the next one... LOL... it gets habit forming and sometimes expensive.

thats some sharp pressbrake work on the chassis too. nice

I love this quote!

"the poor craftsman blames his tools"

I have said something similar to people many times in various disciplines.

"the poor musician blames his instrument" comes to mind...