Once upon a time.... (true story)... I was a poor man who played guitar (is that redundant?) and badly needed a good amplifier. However, being poor is a major problem in that regard. I had cobbled together a few things to play with but nothing really worth the time. I wanted a Marshall head and cab but.... too costly. So, since I had some electronics experience, I figured I could gather the components and build one. I obtained a schematic for the 50w head and bought the transformers and tubes.... picked up the resistors and caps and started my build.

I ended up getting a good deal on a used amp from a kid down the street who needed cash for some legal issues he had gotten himself into, so the project was shelved for a time. Then I had a bit of time and money some years later and decided to pull out the project, blow off the dust and complete it.

With it proudly assembled .... on an open chassis with dangerous things available to the curious fingers.... I took it to the gig I had at the time.... house band in a local night spot. I set it on the 4x12 cabinet, plugged it in, and let it rip. Man that thing sounded really, really good..... for about 30 seconds or so.... them it started getting really distorted and the sounds started getting wonky and I noticed the output tubes looked like light bulbs.... oh my.... I don't think they're supposed to be glowing that brightly.... then pop.... the circuit breaker on the amp kicked off. I was smart enough to include an emergency circuit breaker in the design. Seems the bias was off by a considerable margin on the grids and it just went into runaway once I started playing. Since I had my Mesa at this time, I decided not to pursue the goal of building this amp. I unplugged it, set it on the floor to cool off, and put the Mesa back on the cabinet.

I still have all the parts and occasionally I think about reworking it and figuring out the correct bias, but then I think.... nahhhhh.... maybe next week.

You can find my music at:
www.herbhartley.com
Add nothing that adds nothing to the music.
You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both.

The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.