What's in the mailbox? 📬 📦

[RetiredUnit1]

Ceriatone SSS 50 amp kit came. I got sweaty just getting it unpacked lol. I ordered the everything kit minus tubes and added the head cab as well.

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First impression of the transformers is they are ridiculously girthy.

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The chassis kind of fits on my ‘fireside’ bench hah.

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I’m going to take my time with this one. I ordered 50ft rolls of all the 22 gauge Weico top coat pre-tinned colors, and red and black of the 18 gauge version for the heaters. I also have some electrical grade silicon adhesive, and loctite red coming. I have a roll of 18 gauge tinned copper bus wire already. I have various diameters of clear heat shrink (and black too). Cable ties. . .

Am I missing anything? I saw one YouTube dude putting drops of Deoxit 100 on the tube socket contacts?

They just kinda allude at it being a copy of a high power clean amp. What's it a clone of?

I've built six Hiwatt DR504's, just sourcing all the parts myself, Mercury Magnetics iron (I live close enough to drive and save freight). This was about 16 years ago. Sold three to pay for the three I kept. It's one of David Gilmour's amps of choice, and is a VERY loud very clean machine.

 

[RetiredUnit1]

I needed a 39k 0.5+W resistor and couldn't find any outside of kits or websites with 8€+ shipping. Hoh well.

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I have about 30 pounds of 1w and 2w resistors for the amps I've been building for 20+ years. It's amazing how many times I've had to buy 1000 to get what I wanted. But 20 years ago, I was getting some of those resistors for less than a penny each.....

 

[Asdrael]

I have about 30 pounds of 1w and 2w resistors for the amps I've been building for 20+ years. It's amazing how many times I've had to buy 1000 to get what I wanted. But 20 years ago, I was getting some of those resistors for less than a penny each.....

You know you are starting to really develop a problem when you reasonably ask yourself "Pounds? Currency or weight unit?"

 

[RetiredUnit1]

You know you are starting to really develop a problem when you reasonably ask yourself "Pounds? Currency or weight unit?"

Weight! lol, it's a large box, like the size computer paper comes in, 50lb box.

I have an equal amount of capacitors, nos mustard and miscellaneous manufacturers of pio caps..

Tubes take up a LOT of space but are pretty light tho!

 

[Hal Harvey]

They just kinda allude at it being a copy of a high power clean amp. What's it a clone of?

I've built six Hiwatt DR504's, just sourcing all the parts myself, Mercury Magnetics iron (I live close enough to drive and save freight). This was about 16 years ago. Sold three to pay for the three I kept. It's one of David Gilmour's amps of choice, and is a VERY loud very clean machine.

It’s a clone of Dumble Steel String Singer #4. It’s like the clean channel of the Dumble Overdrive. Clean and spanky, local negative feedback, that kind of thing. My current amp (Mesa Mark 5:35) gets dirty way too fast. Hoping to complement the Mark V with more shades of low to medium overdrive.

3 DR504s!! Nice living close to Mercury.

 

[tegendemuur]

Courier just brought in my first amp: Yamaha's medium-sized (2x10") answer to the Jazz Chorus, loud and clean and stereo in and out. Never too late to join the party! The VR5000, well, everything except the wooden enclosure, will arrive next week, and then my Frankenstein project can commence! (swapping the pre-amp of this one with the VR5000 one; I prefer two channels with the exact same configuration, which the largest model, VR6000, doesn't offer). Many thanks to this forum, for getting me started understanding schematics / building confidence. While I'm not even close to understanding what which cap and resistor does in a circuit, identifying the modules within an amp proved to be a breeze once you know what you're looking at. <3

Curious about what chorus circuit is used in this one.



Quite a bit of hum when nothing's plugged in. So a power supply filter cap replacement I guess (saw a video of the VR5000 where this had already been done, so). Edit: Glue I guess, but all four are part of the power supply filter cap thingy, so that's a start nonetheless! C5, C6, C10, C11... Also C14, C15? (Wouldn't mind someone double check! )




The reverb cannot be turned on without the dedicated triple footswitch that runs on a TS cable, that I don't have. A strange little device that I shall have to put together myself. Likely with three pushbuttons on the amp itself.

 

[PedalBuilder]

More of a "what was in the mailbox some months ago" than a what's in the mailbox today:



Spent the last few months beta testing the new Fractal VP4. I think that it's cured my GAS for anything other than more fuzz pedals for the foreseeable future.

 

[RetiredUnit1]

Well I wasn't sure if I should post this in whats for dinner or the mailbox, lol....

My 60"x30" stainless steel worktable does not play well with with dough and a rolling pin, even with a good dusting of flour it sticks like CRAZY. This makes it undesirable for cheese-bread, cinnamon rolls and other wonderful stuff since you need to roll it out nice and thin, then cover with the filling, then roll it up and either pan it, or cut into individual rolls and put on a baking sheet.

I've had a $500 butcher block table in my watched list in eBay and clicked on it only to see in related items a GLOBAL Boos block table top at around $360. Then I thought I'd go directly to Global and see what their price was instead of buying from a drop shipper.

Well howdy! How about a 48"x24"x1.75" side grain boos block table top for $167.96? List price is $415.20 on the Boos site!

I'm just gonna stick a bunch of those little self sticking silicone feet on the bottom and throw it on the SS table when I need it. It's about 45 pounds so it should be very immobile.....

My receipt:
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The list price from Boos:
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A higher definition picture of the table top:
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Well I got this on Tuesday and sealed both sides with food grade mineral oil mixed with beeswax (at 160f) in a ratio of 7 parts oil to 1 part wax. I rubbed it all off this morning and added feet. Due to the size it's very important that the entire board changes humidity equally, so feet are needed to provide space for air flow to insure this.

After dusting the saw dust off:


After sealing with 'mystery oil' as Boos calls oil and beeswax


Pondering the position of the feet


More pondering.....


And GO


Using a 9/64" drill with #6 stainless screws gave 1/32" smaller holes than the screw, as per spec'd drilling tolerance.


Ready to chop and roll!

Color me happy!!!!

 

[Stickman393]

More of a "what was in the mailbox some months ago" than a what's in the mailbox today:

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Spent the last few months beta testing the new Fractal VP4. I think that it's cured my GAS for anything other than more fuzz pedals for the foreseeable future.

Very cool. I'm a FM9 turbo user myself.

Fractal makes great stuff.

 

[Fama]

My first real EHX pedal! Got it for 30€ shipped because the overdrive side was "not working". The distortion side seems fine, the overdrive side seems to be ok with bias dimed, but lowering the bias leads to a loud hiss that drowns the signal (affected by volume, obviously, but unaffected by the gain control), and the signal just gets weaker while with bias dimed it seems "normal".

I couldn't find any better schematics than the hand drawn one at https://www.freestompboxes.org/viewtopic.php?t=20612, I'll have to read into it more and see what I could test to check if it's an issue with the germanium transistors or something else. I found a bunch of other people with the same issue, but no fixes anywhere. But I'd consider it a win already since it's very usable with bias dimed and the distortion side works without issues, at least.

Might start up a troubleshooting thread for it, but I'll poke around alone at first.

 

[jcpst]

Got my rawcab and my small parts kit in the mail today! I have everything I need to assemble my 15w 5F1 with a 15” speaker.

 

[vigilante398]

Got my rawcab and my small parts kit in the mail today! I have everything I need to assemble my 15w 5F1 with a 15” speaker.
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Rawcabs is legit, Reggie has done a handful of cabinets for me, including a couple custom ones for weird projects. Great dude that does great work.

Are you planning to do a wood finish, or are you going to tolex it?

 

[jcpst]

Rawcabs is legit, Reggie has done a handful of cabinets for me, including a couple custom ones for weird projects. Great dude that does great work.

Are you planning to do a wood finish, or are you going to tolex it?

Yeah, I was impressed with both the huge variety of configurations he has listed, the price, and the quality. Thanks @RetiredUnit1 for mentioning his work a while back!

I was thinking wood finish, I think it gives a little more of that “this was handmade” vibe. If I don’t like it, I could wrap it in tolex/tweed. I think a darker stain will go well with my oxblood+silver-striped grillcloth.

 

[cwsquared]

Yeah, I was impressed with both the huge variety of configurations he has listed, the price, and the quality. Thanks @RetiredUnit1 for mentioning his work a while back!

I was thinking wood finish, I think it gives a little more of that “this was handmade” vibe. If I don’t like it, I could wrap it in tolex/tweed. I think a darker stain will go well with my oxblood+silver-striped grillcloth.

I can't wait to see that finish.

 

[Feral Feline]

Re post a couple pages back: Carbon Bike Frames from Amazon/Aliexpress/TaoBao/etc...

Carbonium is really hit & miss from China's non-established-name-suppliers — but perhaps things have improved overall, I'm outta that loop for a few years now.

Most important thing is — did you get your correct size, Paul?

Seen too many online suppliers' sizing charts [*Cough*Canyon*Cough*] that are complete BS and the victim customer will always get a frame too small for their anatomy.

 

[Erik S]

Pretty good mail day for a Sunday.

Some BBDs, a voltage doubler cable, and some fancy clear epoxy spray paint.

 

[Asdrael]

One drill bit to rule them all, one box to find it, one bit to replace them all and in the 4 to 12mm range in 1mm perfectly aligned drill them, on the drill press where the alu flies.



(Somehow thought they existed only in 2mm increments, so imagine my joy when I found this. Pre drill at 2 or 3mm, swap and I can do all my pedal holes with the same bit now).

 

[RetiredUnit1]

One drill bit to rule them all, one box to find it, one bit to replace them all and in the 4 to 12mm range in 1mm perfectly aligned drill them, on the drill press where the alu flies.

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(Somehow thought they existed only in 2mm increments, so imagine my joy when I found this. Pre drill at 2 or 3mm, swap and I can do all my pedal holes with the same bit now).

Well, maybe not all the drills. I have drills that go through cement, and just try drilling a 3/4" long 9/64" pilot hole in rock maple for a #6 screw without a good set of HSS drills.....

 

[PedalBuilder]

A big bunch of mojo from @Barry! A metal can LM308H, a bunch of nifty 390pF silver mica(?) caps, and some of Barry's own picks.

 

[Asdrael]

Well, maybe not all the drills. I have drills that go through cement, and just try drilling a 3/4" long 9/64" pilot hole in rock maple for a #6 screw without a good set of HSS drills.....

All my drill for pedals at least For wood, I got a large set for guitar building that is really needed. Good brad points, centered, sharp... luv'them