Fender Twin restoration How to lose money!!!

[Ken Fox]

Got a 1970 Twin Reverb for $200.00 on Craigslist. The cab was the remains of a Quad reverb (4 x 12") cut down to a 2 x 12" cab, homemade baffle and falling apart grill. Cab beyond saving! No power tubes, missing two preamp tubes, chassis faceplate beyond salvaging, missing knobs (remaining not worth keeping) and non-working. Salvaged the chassis, reverb tank, bag and cables. Speakers were shot as well. Burned the cabinet on the trash pile!!!

After 10-11 hours of work I had a chassis working. I stripped every part off the chassis, de-soldering and removing every tube socket, transformers, choke, circuit boards,etc. It was the dirtiest chassis I had ever seen inside. I cleaned and de-dented the front of the chassis (typically a lot of these come in with warped front panels). Cleaned the chassis, cap can covers and all tube shields with SOS pads, #000 steel wool and cleaners.
Every tube socket cleaned with Q-tips and denatured alcohol, circuit boards cleaned. Previous lack of workman ship corrected! Someone just cut of the old caps and scabbed on Orange drop caps! Removed all old solder and wire pieces and re-installed them properly. Filter caps were replaced and not so bad a job, re-soldered a few questionable connections there as well. Found NOS faceplate with plastic still on it for around $60.00.

I stripped everything off the chassis (looked like a parts junk pile).
Cleaned the chassis and de-dented the front of the chassis where bent in.

Reinstalled and wired up all parts. Removed Orange drops, resistors other bad work done for black-facing and re-did all that. Cleaned circuit board as I rewired everything! Found the original problem on power up, a bad reverb drive transformer. Got her great shape. I am afraid at shop rate I will not do well on this one!! However, I could not resist bringing it back to life.

I would never recommend this for a customer! The bill would have been around $800.00 for all the work and time!!




New:

face plate (NOS non-master from Marsh amps)
knobs
1-ECC83
!-ECC81
4- 6l6GC
#47 lamp
new power cord
reverb transformer replaced
1-input jack and 1 meg resistor
2- 1 meg resistors
2-220K resistors'
1- 82K resistor'
1-100K resistor
25/25 cap
25/50 cap

[Ken Fox]

It sounds awesome, too! Tested it with a shop 115E cab from Peavey with a 1501-4BW speaker in it.

I have a cab from a Super Twin coming soon. Not sure about speakers just yet

[Clyde Mattocks]

No, Ken, you didn't lose on this one. You got 800.00 worth of good will from those of us who care about these old workhorses and appreciate someone with the knowledge and patience to bring them back to life.

[Kevin Hatton]

Great job Ken, Expert workmanship.

[Ken Fox]

Thanks, guys! I guess I had some extra time on my hands or I would not have taken it in! This type of work can be done, but it is expensive. When buying an amp folks need to look and make sure it is not hacked up like this one was. Wish I had some before pictures, I forgot to take them. It was by far the ugliest Fender amp I have ever seen!!

[Tom Wolverton]

I, too, have lost my shirt in the process of rescuing a "pound puppy". But it's kinda fun to get something like that back in tip-top shape and working great. Too bad doctors can't do that as much with our old carcasses. : )

[Mike Poholsky]

SWEET! You know, in a head cabinet, that would make someone a great compact Twin that they could use with whatever speakers they wanted.
Ken, you do good work!

[Ken Fox]

I was going to do that, but Tommy and I did a trade for a Super Twin cab. Now to find a nice speaker for it and I am set.

[Doug Earnest]

Heck, you've gone this far...might as well put some SICA speakers in it!

[Chris LeDrew]

Great job, Ken! What you did was worth it. I have a friend who does the same kind of work on old Fenders, and he loves it. There's a challenge to getting these old beaters sounding crispy again, and there's an art to knowing what to do to achieve this. It impresses the hell out of me.

[Ken Fox]

One of the problems with building and rebuilding was finding a proper way to solder to the chassis. I tried a Wells 200watt gun for a long time with a pencil tip iron together to get it done, not a good job at all. An old friend (and retired electronics teacher and repair) told me my problem was not the wattage of the irons, it was the wrong tips! He said you need surface area, lots of it on the tip. I got a Weller pencil iron, 80 watts with a with chisel tip and I can solder like the old Fender amps were done now.

Unfortunately the 12" SICA has a mounting issue! The speaker holes are 5/16" further apart than American standard. We are working on that issue with the distributor for 50 speakers (4 ohms) that are coming in. Plan was to use them in N112 amps, taking the amp to 37 pounds and also increasing the efficiency of the amp.

I have two of the new Guitar Warehouse Veteran 30 or two Delta Pro 12A (ugh, very heavy but a killer speaker, clone of the EVM12L).

[James Morehead]

Good Job Ken, That's why you do my amps. You have an awesome talent for such work and an eye for detail. And an ear to know what these babies are supposed to sound like.

[Lefty]

Ken,
You are a Hog for punishment, but have the patience of a watchmaker. As always, a great job.
I'll bet that amp never sounded so good in its lifetime.
Lefty

[Bill A. Moore]

I would have done the same thing Ken. I started my "Twin" project with a Weber chassis, and a turret board. Mallory, Sprague, Cts, Switchcraft, Hammond and Fender xformers, it all adds up. I'm afraid to look, but I bet I'll have close to $1K in it when I'm done, but it will be the way I like it!
The great work that you are known for will allow you to sell this amp for a reasonable price!

[Greg Cutshaw]

Trade secrets? WD-40 appears in 7 of the 11 pictures. Got to be something to that. Some techs have pictures of their cats and dogs nearby making me wonder just how smart their pets are. Nice job Ken!


Greg

[Bill Hatcher]

WD40 is only for fence hinges and lawnmowers.

[John Groover McDuffie]

Nice "after" pics; how about some "before" pics?

I can sympathize. I lost a bunch of money on a SF Vibro Champ I bought on ebay. I knew it wasn't working but I didn't expect it needed both power and output transformers! So I ended up spending about $600 all told on an amp that seems to be worth about $350.

The amp has since been heavily modded by me anyway, so I suppose it is worth less now in actual resale value, but it is serving my needs better.

[Larry Chung]

That looks great, Ken, congrats. When I'm not playing the Webb you fixed up for me, I play a Twin very similar to yours, a '69 Twin with a JBL K-130-4, of course... (:

If the restoration of that ol' Twin is anywhere near the restoration that you performed on my Webb, I think you'll be smiling in no time... particularly when you switch off that standby switch and play through it.

Thanks for the tip about the soldering iron, too, would have never thought of the total heated area...

Best,
LC

[Ken Fox]

WD-40. Good hand cleaner! Never used it on amps yet! My old retired tech buddy and former electronics teacher swore by it for cleaning tube sockets. Great cleaner and glue remover (those sticky label they put on everything you buy at the store).


Most used a lot of elbow grease, denatured alcohol (cleaning the boards and solder joints), a lot of 409 and scrub brush as well.

[John Groover McDuffie]

Before pics! Come on!

Thanks for the tip about the soldering tip.

[Dan Tyack]

Ken,


Here's my secret with 2X12" amps: put in two different types of speakers. It makes it sound fatter. I favor a 'JBL type' with a 'Celestion type'.

[Thom Ferman]

Ken, I don't know how bad off your "before" was but I just ran across this truly sad SF Super Reverb on the Vegas Craigslist:




I thought for about 2 seconds that maybe it'd be a fun project, then I thought life's just too short. But then again for $75....

[Bill A. Moore]

Thom, I'd go for it, unless you have a current project you need to sink money into!

[Ken Fox]

Wish I had some before shots, forgot to take them.

[John Groover McDuffie]

You probably didn't want to damage your camera.