DIY Amp.

[Adoom]

One of my more recent decisions has been to hand wire and build a guitar amplifier for myself. I have been looking over the schematics detailing the layout of some of the late 50’s/early 60’s Supro amplifiers and have decided on one of them to be the end goal, though I may attempt to clone my 1959 Gibson GA-8, as its circuit is deceptively simple for such [*]a wonderful sounding amplifier.⁣

In any case, if I vanish off the face of the earth, I’m dead in some garage up in Howth having died doing what I loved.⁣

Which is attempting something without quite knowing how to do that thing safely.

I have been listening to the rather excellent Fretboard journal podcast with Skip Simmons. I have a friend who deals in sparks to help me survive.

What resources or tips and cheats should I know about? Places to get old tubes, capacitors etc.? What information should I know about learning how to read schematics and such?

Hello again, everybody.

[doommeow]

i know nothing about amp building, but do know that tweed-era gibson amps are awesome.

the ga-8 is basically a (tweed) princeton or overgrown champ, right? plenty of kits available for those that could easily/probably be bastardized into the (superior) gibson circuit.

[mathias]

Skylarks are rad as hell.

[crochambeau]

What information should I know about learning how to read schematics and such?

The most helpful thing I did to learn schematics was doing what you're doing, plain and simple.

In terms of safety, a GFCI on the bench can save your ass, primitive light bulb current limiters/etc can be built. A variac to soften the break in of your high voltage electrolytics is also recommended.

Most electronics forums are full of helpful and informed people, though it's better to find like minded people (because some modern EEs scoff at "primitive" technology) groupDIY is a good space for pointed questions and absorption of knowledge.

Have fun!