Ramblings of a solder junkie

Pro Reverb restoration

2012-01-19T18:15:00.000-06:00

Somehow, i've roped myself into another project amp that is neither financially feasible or especially desireable.
The amp is a 1972 (or thereabouts) fender pro reverb. It's a non master volume,non ultralinear amp that clearly had potential hidden under it's peavey tweed patterned vinyl and replaced incorrect baffle.
The baffle replacement wrecked the cabinet and by my count it was broken into roughly 14 pieces and then "repaired" and slathered with epoxy...
anyway,
Bitching about workmanship of the repairs aside, it is coming along nicely. i stripped 2 layers of glue off the outside of the cabinet and have been unrepairing and re-repairing it.
Here's a few pics to give you an idea of what i'm working with here...

At this point, things are buzzing along quickly.The electronics are repaired, the new baffle is cut and the wood repairs are close to being done. the replacement tolex is in hand and i just happen to have a roll of nos grill cloth material that is period correct for this amp.the original grill was broken and glued back together incorrectly but there's enough there for me to use it as a template.
I'll try to update every few days as it comes along and hopefully she will be up and going in the next week!!

Shellacing tweed

2011-11-19T02:25:00.005-06:00

I'm building a clone of a 5e5a pro right now for an old friend who has gone on to bigger and better things .
I was working tonight and realized that my tweed finishing process has evolved fairly radically over the years and it is now almost a science. The process is too long and convoluted to type out and probably takes more time than it should to remain financially feasible but, it's something i enjoy and money's not everything, right ? :)
I'll be posting pictures of each coat as i go along so you can sort of see how it works.
coat 1 :

coat 2:

coats 3 and 4 :

and then here we are at our final color:

This took upwards of 7 coats (with inbetween steel wool treatment)But the results were fantastic and the new owner is overjoyed with his new amp.

Flowery compressor for sale

2011-11-16T15:42:00.004-06:00

Like compression,flowers and hand picked components? Well, have i got the pedal for you.....

Time Flies.

2011-11-09T16:02:00.003-06:00

Things have been weird since the last update.work and sanity comes and goes in spurts but, there are a couple of new things on the breadboard and a few amp things on the bench that I'll post about in the near future.
The pedal being constructed right now is for a super nice guy that wanted a bit of a warmth with some hair around the edges for his bass.I've got the circuit worked out and the board soldered up and as soon as i can get some time on the drill press it will be getting wired up and sent to its' new home.
I figured a little zombie love was way over due..

2011-01-05T02:34:00.004-06:00

what do you do when someone needs a utilitarian pedal to solve a specific problem?

You give it a quirky name, paintjob and call it something silly and hope they love it.
I present to you the a/bee switch...
sigh...

Resurrection of an amplifier

2010-04-27T20:50:00.004-05:00

I have an almost psychotic love for just about anything covered in tweed.Suitcases,chairs,tables,workbenches,amps and just about anything else i can think of would be better looking and more durable covered in a well applied and finished tweed covering.There's just something about the mix of art and craftsmanship in a well done tweed that i really like.
Fender built amplifiers from the 50's are hands down my favorite sounding and looking amps of all time. they have a smooth,organic clean tone that sort of eases itself into a nice raunchy overdrive as you turn up their volume controls and they are, of course,covered in tweed.
With all that being said, i really,really enjoy restoring and working on these amps.my current tweed project is composed of the remnants of a 1956 or early 57 pro amp.It was purchased via ebay from a super nice guy and gal that run a small music store out of their garage.
I knew from the beginning that the amp had some issues but, it looked like a challenge and it honestly just hurt to see an amp that was once fender's top of the line model in such sad condition (see above pic).when it arrived i immediately started restoring it. ( if you want a step by step and progress reports you can follow along here:
Pro rebuild thread)
It's coming along nicely and is getting worked on for relaxation :).I'm hoping to have it done in the next month or so and am really looking forward to comparing it to my 56.

Guttermouth Electronics Forum

2010-04-27T20:36:00.003-05:00

The nice guys over at musician central have seen fit to give me my own subforum.Come on over and hang out,ask questions or just say hi.
Guttermouth electronics forum

The first batch of tube lamps are ready

2010-03-01T18:53:00.002-06:00

Come'n get 'em!!!

The first batch is made up of a couple of 7 pin and a couple of 9 pin models .all led's are blue and all of the first batch will come with the tubes in their original boxes!!

Tube Lamps

2010-02-08T16:57:00.003-06:00

The world of tubes is a funny thing sometimes. Within the realm of an industry based on a long since dead technology ,there are different degrees of dead.Close to the bottom of this ladder are a littering of really cool looking, American made tubes that were state of the art for their day and were built to withstand insane temperature fluctuations and voltage ranges for use in televisions,radios and generally any electronic device you can think of.When the devices they were made for were obsoleted the tubes themselves were thrown away with them.
As of right now there are just thousands and thousands of these old tubes still around unused ,in their original boxes with no purpose left other than filling the landfills.
With this in mind - I introduce you to the Guttermouth electronics line of desk lamps :).
These will come in two sizes - the one shown here is night light sized and will utilize any 9 pin tube . The second will use bigger 8 pin tubes and be considerably brighter.They run off standard 9-12 volt center negative power supplies,consume almost no power (great for the environment!) and will come in just about any color you can think of .

Latest projects

2010-01-04T22:38:00.005-06:00

There have been some changes happening here lately - effects pedals are on the back burner as i've been trying to clear the shop of unfinished projects that have accumulated.
I've also built a couple of amps and done some various other boring stuff.
The last amplifier i finished was a tweed voiced head that was kind of a deluxe/pro hybrid with a true point to point preamp. I've never done a point to point amp from scratch before so it was more of an experiment and learning experience than anything else. it came out sounding great and was exceedingly small for the amount of volume it puts out.

The entire head measures 12 inches across by 8 inches deep and 2 inches tall and puts out about 30 watts or so.
The project on the bench at the moment is a pretty standard jcm800 clone. it's coming together nicely and will be a pretty rockin' amp when it gets done.

The killer rabbit of Caerbannog !!!!

2009-11-03T19:12:00.002-06:00

The last one was so funny i had to do another:

2009-10-19T03:11:00.002-05:00

I just finished up these two tremolos for a buddy. It almost looks like i've developed a solid brand or something, eh? :P

Guttermouth Electronics store on zazzle

2009-09-20T22:01:00.002-05:00

Go there and buy Lots and LOTS OF STUFF!!!!!!
http://www.zazzle.com/ianbleague

2009-09-11T01:57:00.005-05:00

Here's something i just finished up as a surprise for a good guy. i think it's hilarious.The eye lights up in sync with your playing.

Boost -O- Rama

2009-03-12T22:45:00.004-05:00

Having a mind like a steel trap is a great thing sometimes. In my infinite wisdom i overlooked the fact that my wire supplies were running dangerously low last week.Sooo.......i ran out of wire last weekend.
I had several prototypes that were already built and just needed component tweaking so i got to work on them and put all my paying jobs on hold due to the lack of wire.
Today's pedal was a guitar booster. The circuit is something i've been tweaking on for a while now and it may be done finally. It's a treble booster sort of thing - sounds great with single coils and fender voiced amps.
I wanted a spin art sort of effect and got pretty close by mixing the colors on the enclosure and then pulling them outwards with a piece of wire.

Hiding an led.

2009-03-06T20:29:00.005-06:00

I may be a bit weird in that, i don't like to see led's when they are turned off. i'm always looking for ways to achieve this goal and today's experiment turned out well.
here's a close up of the top of the pedal with the light off :

If you look really hard under the letter above you'll see a small bump.

The trick is :
drill into the back of the enclosure slowly while looking at the front.if you drill slowly enough you will see the bit come through the aluminum.stop before the drill bit pierces the powdercoat.
now, take your led, sand the end flat and glue it into the hole in the aluminum. wire up the led as you would normally.
you may have to experiment with dropping resistor values for the led to be bright enough to be seen through the powdercoat but, if you're using super bright led's,chances are, you'll be good to go.

Today's pedal

2009-03-04T22:01:00.002-06:00

Today's pedal project was a wah pedal conversion.This pedal started life as a budda wah pedal. the enclosure was gutted,drilled, and had a new circuit installed. the pedal is powdercoated in a purple finish so we decided to work with the paint scheme instead of stripping ,repainting and baking.
the pedal is now a really nice sounding tremolo. The foot treadle controls the speed of the tremolo and it has dedicated knobs for depth and overall output volume.

The silly things i do.

2009-02-10T11:41:00.010-06:00

I figured setting up a blog would be the easiest/fastest way for me to show custom work and interact directly.we'll see how it goes.
Here's a couple of current and recently completed projects just to get things rolling.
At the moment i'm in the middle of several projects (a couple of pedals,an amp or two and whatever various repairs roll in). i'm also in the middle of a long term "down time" project for myself but i'll talk about that later.
todays' pedal is a custom 2 sided affair for a great guy.he's been nice enough to put up with my "optimistic" completion time estimates and is just an all around awesome guy.
This is gonna be 2 pedals (a mosfet booster and silicon fuzz pedal voiced for use with a telecaster) in the same enclosure.the art is based on a woodcut by kawase hasui called "Moon at Magome" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kawase_Hasui).He was known for his nature scenes and with good reason - they are stunning.
The enclosure is prepped, primed with self etching primer and then the art is done in a special acrylic paint and baked. the baking process darkened the colors a bit more than i would have liked but, i think it looks awesome.

Here's a couple of random completed projects just to kick things off.