I'm Back! And I have pictures of the 5E3 Deluxe Build!

So after what seems like forever, I'm finally writing again! A lot has happened over the last few weeks - I caught what felt like the bird flu, made some personal career changes, played a few shows, had my primary amp explode, and furiously worked on this amp to get it up and running to replace my main amp!

So this build seems to have been cursed from the beginning. It was much more difficult to get working 100% than the last one, but not all the problems were totally our(Jim & I) fault.

When I first turned it on we got power, but the signal was very strange - the two channel volumes were supposed to be very interactive, but basically one went down while the other went up! very strange...and there were other problems. Eventually I ended up ripping out the entire board & pot/jack network, checking their wiring (they were basically fine, and putting them back in. Pots were a little too big for the knobs to fit correctly, so I ordered three new knobs & replaced them while I was at it....and in the process cooked the 0047 cap off the tone knob a little...argh...

This time I tested the amp it basically sounded awesome! Although there was some mysterious redplating on one of the power tubes that seemed to come and go..odd...but it went away so I took the amp to practice last week, and WOW, did it sound awesome! Eventually the redplating did come back, only on one tube though! Swapped tube positions...check! Bad Power tube! argh....

Things were more or less ok with the circuit after that - but by this point the rectifier tube socket was starting to get loose from all the pulling and replacing of the tubes (each time i tested it, basically). So new sockets! We also pulled the v1 preamp socket and replaced it because we thought it might be related to the one last issue we are still having with the amp - and one of the bolts stripped to the point that I couldn't get it off! ARGH! So after much cursing, I calmed down and went to the hardware store the next day to buy a bolt cutter. Problems solved. Reinstalled socket, rewired, tested amp out again! Now i'm getting some weird microphonics! Probably a bad preamp tube now, from all the pulling & replacing...arghh...

Now despite all these ridiculous problems, the amp basically sounds great and works fine. But I did learn a lot of what works and what doesn't in this build, and I have a new primary amp too! The only bug left in the amp is that the normal volume channel doesn't go completely to zero volume, rather it levels off around 5 and stays put at that level, although the bright channel volume works as expected. I still have a few connections on the pot network to recheck (mainly grounds), and for all I know, the normal channel volume pot could be bad (which wouldn't surprise me, haha). Will update the status of this on the lessons learned post.

Anyway. Pics! click on the pic below to see the whole thing...