My first build: Clone of a Blackface Champ

dewets

My first build:

A clone of a Blackface Champ with seperate Bass & Treble.

The cabinet was home made, the chassis is 2 mm aluminium, and I used whatever bits 'n bobs I had. Power tranny is 275-0-275V, 6.3V, and the output tranny was wound by Rudi Hannauer.

I made the turret board/PCB with tracks underneath the turrets, and did the layout in EasyPCB. I opted for solid state rectifiers as I did not have a valve diode available. I used the layout from Ceriatone. Valves and the speaker came from my son-in-law. He did an upgrade on his real Fender Champ, and I got donated the "hardware". So I had to do something with it...

Two of my young guitar playing friends put the amp thru its paces for me, and both were over the moon about it.

Here are some shots
Innards from above

From the front:

Another frontal:

Rear view:

"Cased": rear view:

The business end: Frontal view

Comments welcome.

Norman86

That looks awesome! ?
Mind posting some soundclips?? Just out of curiosity??

Charlie4

That amp looks sweet !
Where did you get your Power/Output transformers (Rudi Hannauer)?
He local, american ? ???

Gearhead

That power tranny looks very vintage, wouldn't be my fav but convincingly not today's looks. Cool, good to see yet another builder on the forum.
Did it work fine straight off the bat?
It looks as though the input wiring is not coax - you may have some hum crackle and squeal that can be eliminated. Just a thought.

dewets

The PT is from a friend (he collects vintage valve radios...) and can power MORE than just a lil Champ, so it is of a n earlier vintage, but still usable.

There was the usual squeals and clicks at power on, but I had read enough to realize the leads to the OT needs to be reversed. Did that and she was as quiet as can be. I need to change the volume pot, as it's a bit scratchy...

Rudi Hannauer is a local Cape Town guy. I've had him wound me both the PT and OT's only to realize that I gave him the incorrect voltage for the PT: 160 0 160 instead of at least 275 0 275...
Super guy to deal with, and really good stuff he "created".

Maybe I'll still put that PT to use on a valve preamp or other...

I'll get a sound clip from a guit-player friend, and post it here.

Case is also "thys-gemaak" from some plywood I had available. ? As yet I do not have a name for it. Suggestions?