TubeNexus

At the end of this step we should, in theory, have a working amplifier. The step mainly involves straight one-to-one wiring of the main-board leads to the pots and tube sockets, as well as wiring the power supply leads to the appropriate main-board turrets.

This photo shows the final wiring, after I upgraded the yellow Mallory [...]

Some of the most critical wiring in a high-gain amp like the Trainwreck is around the 1st tube stage… including the Input Jack, the Volume Control, and the route to the grid of the 2nd stage triode. In my project I found the placement of the bright caps and damping microphonics associated with them [...]

Wiring up the Power Supply

The trickiest part of this project is probably the installation of the power supply board and the filter capacitors. Careful consideration must be given to terminating the various grounds and some care in routing the DC voltages as well. The published layouts provide a good guide and hopefully the [...]

Ken Fisher gave us the Trainwreck(TM) amplifier legacy and his Express amp is what the “Expression” Kit is inspired by.  But what does a Trainwreck Express sound like?

Another great development on the AmpGarage Forum… Ron Worley has compiled a lot of the key reference materials for a Trainwreck Express build into one large document and written a very comprehensive “Builders Guide” around the materials… and very well done, too. You can download the result from this thread: Express Build Guide. You [...]

A lot has happened on the AmpGarage Trainwreck Discussion in the 1+ years since I originally built my Ceriatone. DrHulsey had a thread in which he shared his cleaned up schematic (last update: March, 2008)… finally a schematic that completely aligns with Francesca… here is the DrHulsey Schematic Thread. In this thread is also [...]

This series of postings will detail the construction and debug of a Ceriatone kit.  Along the way I hope to capture some of the key considerations & stumbling blocks and give you a good feel for the process.

If you have decided to take the plunge and build your own guitar tube amp, please let me share my early mistakes projects with you to help get you going in the right direction.  But first, be sure you really want to build your own:

Tough question. The real thing is quite rare and most people are not likely to ever play through one. But we do have a number of good references:

For many, the Dumble amplifier is the holy grail of electric guitar tone. Its caché is helped by the rarity of the actual amplifiers and the famous (and talented) guitarists that favour the amp.