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Vintage refurbishing advice

DvnLesPaul

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Sep 17, 2002
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815
Inherited my uncles National tube amp, it's 80w, probably ~1950. Nice wood cab, does power up and you can hear signal through it but the sound was waffling so I just quickly shut it back down. I thought I'd really like to have it refurbished, keeping it as original as possible. Probably could pull just the chassis out and ship it somewhere. Any recommendations to who might take this on for me?
 
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corpse

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Jun 9, 2007
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4,870
I am a huge fan of Jeff Andrews at Andrews Amp Lab in Atl. Jeff understands several things- A- what these amps should sound like 2. They need to be safe and work reliably c. how to do that with modern components. He does work for Charlie Starr and Benji Shanks.
I brought him my 1963 Deluxe Brown Fender several years ago that suddenly went dead. He went through it and it was the OT. He bought a Mercury tranny and put it back together but still nada. He went through it a second time and found a loose ground. He didn't charge me for the tranny- and that is the way it should be- but many guys would not have said anything. I thought that was very cool.
 

DvnLesPaul

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Sep 17, 2002
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Just got the old girl back from Terry! What a treat. 1949 model 1215.


119604471_10208096803413463_8747168371898906169_n.jpg
 
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DvnLesPaul

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Sep 17, 2002
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Thanks! It actually sounds remarkably good. I had an ext speaker jack added that defeats the original Jensen (when in use) so I could leave everything intact and be safe if I get after it a bit.
 

fernieite

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Jan 3, 2010
Messages
608
I'm glad everything worked out for you. Terry knows these amps and does great work!

I bet it sounds as good as it looks! Is that a dual 6L6 circuit and a 12" Jensen?

Are you sure about the speaker being 8 ohms? Many of the old Valco's had 4 ohm speakers.
 

fernieite

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Joined
Jan 3, 2010
Messages
608
Ok, so yeah it has 6L6s and a 12" speaker. Cool.

It's nice to see that Terry made out such a detailed list of what was done!

Congrats on the amp.
 

agogetr

Active member
Joined
Jan 22, 2019
Messages
451
I am a huge fan of Jeff Andrews at Andrews Amp Lab in Atl. Jeff understands several things- A- what these amps should sound like 2. They need to be safe and work reliably c. how to do that with modern components. He does work for Charlie Starr and Benji Shanks.
I brought him my 1963 Deluxe Brown Fender several years ago that suddenly went dead. He went through it and it was the OT. He bought a Mercury tranny and put it back together but still nada. He went through it a second time and found a loose ground. He didn't charge me for the tranny- and that is the way it should be- but many guys would not have said anything. I thought that was very cool.
wont mercury re wind the old trany? one of the outfits does. a few more bucks but thats the way i would go rather than a new one. skip simmons repairs amps. stellar dude
 
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