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UNPLANNED DOWNTIME: 12th Oct 23:45
NFS: '56 Fender Bassman 5E6; Sold: '82 MusicMan RD50: £550 now £475; Sold: WoolyCoats Sparky
I've way to many amps so have decided to sell a few.
Collection wise, I live in North London, so can drive up to an hour or so to meet half way, or may post (fully insured) the 1x12 combos. I'd drive further to deliver the Bassman - just ask!
Prices quoted are ppg and exclude postage.
First up is a really rare piece. This is a very early (56) Fender Bassman that I have had extensively and lovingly restored by Steve Dove at SA ampworks. He did a resto for a 59 bassman for Mark Knopfler so knows his stuff. This amp is a 5E6, so two not four inputs and a lower power rating than a 59 bassman (which is 40w) so at what I think is actually c 28 watts it breaks up a bit earlier and indeed some prefer them to the holy grail '59 bassman. I've gigged it un mic'd alongside a loud drummer to 200 people and it sounds great.
Very hard to price this as there are so few around in the UK and I have spent a small fortune restoring it - it owes me quite a bit more than the asking price! I do know that restoration generally reduces the value, but the sound is excellent now and it will last another 50 years. Selling as it is a big beast with the 4 x 10 speakers, but not desperate to sell as it is a fine sounding thing. I will probably regret this. Would expect any interested party to want to examine it / try it out in detail. Also comes with custom cover. I think it has been re-tweeded / re-covered.
Looking for £6,999 - now £6k, might px for an interesting vintage guitar or smaller amp. Try me.
Pictures below plus a list of what Steve did.
Chassis work:
o Stripped out chassis, component board temp treated, in regard noise and output level issues.
o Fitted New Heyboer correct spec UK power transformer, replaced DC filtering cap bank, and associated resistors, circuit built up using carbon comp vintage type resistors and signal caps with comparable performance to the out of tolerance originals, also the prior replaced, and wrong type were removed, and substituted with authentic.
o Octal valve sockets renewed, and groundings remade from these, the flashover resistors were upgraded on the output pair.
o Damaged chassis at power transformer side, was improved on, the poor workmanship, that had been result of earlier US transformer fit, visually improved over, and new fitting far more solid!
o Output transformer that had oxidised, cracked, overheated, leads replaced with 95 Schumacher, type used in 50;s Tweed BM.
o Valve heater chain removed (burned) replaced right through with cloth sleeved exact type, but heavier duty, and higher current capability.
o Bias cct upgraded with improved smoothing of output bias supply.
o Rectifier now silicon, a recommended change from the underperformer that was fitted originally.
o The circuit had been subjected, to substandard board solder work throughout, very dried out, and had bled through into the sandwich section, underneath board and created, basically a nasty untidy mess, boards were removed, totally de-soldered, underside wiring fully redone, refitted. This was obviously before the topside components were renewed Eq controls were reworked/cleaned, wiring here redone where degraded!! and hence renewed, grounding on controls, made good.
o Main groundings redone, was very shabby as was also supply ground/earth taken from here off new 3 conductor power cable.
o DVM meter checked all point-point connections and visual examined new solder work.
Cabinet rework/resto:
Cab had been checked sonically, and the issues to rectify as follows: baffle bowed and flexing, had been subjected to a poor environment, damp in the equation at some stage. Speakers vibrating, due to loose fixings, and compounded by the above. Severe low end instability, more pronounced at vol increase. Baffle material spitting away at bottom edge, having been nailed in place poorly. Hence work carried out as follows:
o Baffle removed! Scrapped. Replacement made from high grade marine ply, using original as ref template, cut out as original, drilled out for replacement speaker stud screw fixing threads. Redid aperture edgings, commercial wood glued and pinned back into place. New (aged) baffle covering applied exactly as factory fit, stapled and adhesive used at edges to add additional strength.
o Visually checked the 4 speakers, cones in good order,
o New baffle planned to fit correctly! (allow to float) as tweeds should! fitted into cab, replacement fixings (in part) needed and that done, speakers installed.
o Tested cab with fender Super reverb chassis (same) 2 ohm loading, and no vibration present, or increased low end disruption! as with this cab prior, sounded taught and focused!
o Fitted chassis into cab, loaded valves: Mullard rectifier, 2x Philips, Sylvania JAN output 6L6's - mix Vintage USA/England preamps, output checked on scope, bias set measured. All good.
o Tested with Strat/Les Paul/Telecaster. Great results with the speakers coming good too!!
PS, the (redundant in the UK) ground switch now acts as boost / fat switch that is just great.
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Music Man RD50 (reverb, distortion) combo - original classic 1982 guitar combo, not the recent reissue. Enormous sound for its size at 50 watts. Really deep bass, sort of Blackface with a bit more mid bite - Vintage guitar calls this amp a hybrid boogie. Seemingly very collectible these days and highly sought after.
Lastly, NOW SOLD is am amp scored in this forum that is a high end combo based on a vintage princeton. Bought from Treewig1 almost 3 years ago who bought it from Wazmeister here in September 2020. His write up is below...
https://imgur.com/a/l50iFra.jpg
https://imgur.com/ADnY5ON.jpg