Repairing a vintage Gibson LG-0 from 1969
When I was a teenager I inherited an old acoustic guitar from a deceased relative. The guitar had been abandoned in an attic for at least ten years before that, and was in quite bad shape. We’re talking multiple cracks in the top, loose braces, finish flaking off all over the place, impossibly high action, […]
Making a 12AX7 substitute from two subminiature 6247 triodes
I have a handful of these 6247WA subminiature triode tubes that I bought way back when I was getting interested in tube electronics. They were very cheap, and thus good for experimenting with when I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. Now that I’ve graduated to more common and more expensive tubes, I’m […]
Custom 1×8 combo tube amp: build log #3, finished!
I’ve started putting together the electrical parts of the amp. This is where the real fun begins! This log is going to be rather picture-heavy if I can help it, with explanations placed where pictures are worth too few words. First comes the power input section. The power transformer gets mounted in its holes, as […]
Custom 1×8 combo tube amp: build log #2
The transformers for my amp project arrived a couple weeks ago, enabling me to move forward with construction. The first thing I did was find a suitable location to mount the power transformer. This turned out to be exactly on top of where the old power transformer was mounted. The hole the old transformer lived […]
Custom 1×8 combo tube amp: build log #1
Some weeks ago I decided to build a tube amp. I wanted something simple, with few parts, that sounds good. I decided to work from the AX84 P1-eXtreme amplifier design. I considered buying a metal chassis for the head and then building a wooden head enclosure and wooden speaker cab by hand. I figured it […]
TMO Project Log – Like fashion, never finished (but close!)
I’m not so good at this whole “consistent project log” thing, am I? In any case, I’ve made lots of progress since my last check in (the introduction, hah)! The display board is complete, controls are hooked up and working, and TMOOS is quite functional. It’s able to run standalone from a battery and is […]
TMO Project Log – Introduction
I’d like to introduce my current project called TMO. TMO is (or rather, will be) a handheld electronic game system. It features a 16×16 dot-matrix LED screen, very simple sound (beeps and such), and input via a wheel controller and several buttons. I’m still working on finalizing the design, but this gives the general idea. […]
Homebrew rackmount tube guitar preamp
I play guitar, and I have wanted a tube amplifier for quite some time. However tube amps are expensive and complete amp DIY builds can be tricky if it’s your first time. So I decided to do the next best thing by building a standalone preamp. This takes advantage of the fact that I already […]