Tweed Deluxe Cabinet Contruction Pt. 2

After glueing on the face frame and rounding the corners with a 3/8″ radius cove bit, the cabinet looks like so:

Tweed Deluxe Cabinet Construction

One the amplifier chassis was finished, it needed a cabinet of some kind…  While there are plenty of places to buy cabinets for these amps, I thought it would be fun to build one.  The originals were constructed of box-jointed pine, so I planned to do the same.  Some plans for a Tweed Deluxe cabinet [...]

Completed 5e3 Chassis

Here are a couple of pics of the completed chassis from the outside.  Transformers are by Heyboer.  Tubes are JJ Tesla, except for the 12AY7 and rectifier, which are Electro-Harmonix.   So far I have tested the amp out with a Celestion G12-80 8-Ohm speaker.  I’m loving the sounds of it.  Compared to my Vox [...]

Installing Potentiometers and Circuit Board into Chassis

The kit instructions call for cutting off the little anti-rotation nibs on the potentiometers, then inserting them into the chassis holes.  However, I like to keep them on as they prevent the  pots from moving if a nut should work loose.  Since the chassis does not have corresponding holes (and I didn’t want to drill [...]

Wiring Up the 5e3 Circuit Board

Here are some shots of wiring up the old-school style eyelet board (front and back): I made a few component changes from the stock Trinity kit parts:  Sprague Atom filter caps, Sozo Bluemolded caps (which are supposed to replicate the Astrons used in old Fenders), a few metal film resitors, and I also replaced the [...]

Starting the 5e3 Assembly/Wiring

The original schematic and layout diagram for the 5e3 Fender Deluxe are widely available on the web as this must be one of the most popular amps for DIY’ing of all time: 5e3 Deluxe Schematic 5e3 Deluxe Layout The Trinity version basically follows the original fairly closely, with a few little mods here and there [...]

Fender 5e3 Tweed Deluxe Amp Build

It’s been a while since I last posted as I’ve been busy lately, but I hope to be posting a lot more in the days ahead… Happy New Year!  Anyway,  I thought I’d share something a little different from my effects pedal projects – a guitar amplifier build that I started back around Thanksgiving.  In [...]