Pickin’ and Grinnin’

[Ulu]

It wasn’t that wonderful, John. But, If I leave out the intro, the outro and the bridge, I can probably get the file small enough.

But I think I will wait until I can do a cleaner performance and post it up on YouTube.

I wrote that and performed it for the first time in a span of four hours so you really can’t expect too much.

 

[Ulu]

Hey no recordings worth posting, but I built a portable guitar amp from my dad’s old GE Superadio. This is a powerful radio with a special 6” speaker.

5watts max.

I had to change the power switch, & so I made the little white switch plate.

The circuitry is dead simple. Find the volume knob and trace the center wire to the base of the pre-amp transistor.

Mine is brown on the test cord hookup. The other wire (I use blue) goes to any ground. I used the speaker Negative terminal. Easy to solder .

I didn’t go right to the transistor leg but to the resistor adjacent. Resistors are harder to burn with the iron.

It’s 100% portable on 9vdc or 120vac, and while it’s sorta quiet playing clean tones, it screams with a 9v booster pedal.

It even kept running down to 4.5 volts, where it gave that sagging tube sound. The booster will take 18vdc for a real scream, but so far I haven’t run it over 15v.

 

[Ulu]

I’m doing this to another radio too.





Stay tuned….

 

[Ulu]

I was so happy with that radio/amp conversion, I am building a cabinet for this one with four 8” speakers.






Essentially this is because I already have the speakers. So here’s the guts.


That’s everything except the screws upholstery and a 12 V battery. It should sound really good once I get it in the cabinet and add the booster amp.

It’s time to buy a new battery for my motorcycle anyhow and I’ll probably put the old one in here. In the meantime it also runs on AC.

I had some blowouts when I tried to bend the wood with steam, but I just glued it down with paper. This is all going to be upholstered when I’m done.

 

[puffers4puffers]

Ulu
I may not know exactly what I’m looking at, but I know what sounds right
That looks like a good time!

 

[cockroach]

Ulu You remind me of a very good drinking buddy/friend here. He always goes on about how he is busy with a simple fix of this, or a quick upgrade on that. Then, like your pics above, opens up something that looks like it needs a damn quantum electrician to install. Next thing, he removes a panel, then "quickly" cuts out the required parts in his workshop. Puts it all together and tries to explain what he quickly did. All Greek to me. But love the work you guys do.
He has the most extensive music library, saved on numerous hard drives, I have ever seen. You can basically name a band and song and he has catalogued it over the years. He ran a live band venue for a few years in South Africa.

 

[Ulu]

Well I’m going backwards in time now because I bought a couple of vacuum tube radios with the intention of turning them into guitar amplifiers.

This is an original and unmolested 1950 Sears Silvertone AM/FM radio.



The 1961 Zenith AM/FM
Rather mollested ;(

 

[Freeze Dried Skittles]

Where did you find such a prehistoric artifact?

I had no idea this ancient relic existed. Should be in a museum

 

[Ulu]

Speakers sound great with the transistor boom box amp.



No luck yet on the tube amp.


The tubes all look normal enough.
Someone rewired this whole radio with modern wire. I think maybe they missed a wire.

I’ve been checking the connections one by one.

 

[Ulu]

Still no upholstery yet, but she’s got legs!

She also has an isolation transformer & so doesn’t need a ground or a polarized plug.

I used a switch with a built-in pilot light for simplicity. It’s got a two amp fuse. It has a built-in booster circuit, but it’s weak.

Safety Putty! (Plumber’s epoxy stick.) It covers the back of the 120 V switch.


The Schecter guitar has amplified pickups and it sounds pretty good on this amp.

Especially considering that so far I’ve spent $30 on a pine board, screws, a switchcraft jack, and some cheap grill cloth.


Every single bit otherwise came from my stash of things. If I had use the homosote baffles, some non-matching screws, and the mdf boards that I already had to build this with, and covered it with something I already have, my total outlay would be five dollars.

I felt like I could afford to splurge.


I also played it with a Silvertone guitar and it definitely needs the booster pedal to sound loud. An impedance matching transformer might be in order here.

There’s an impressive amount of distortion to be had here.