Rich from Hideous Creep decided it was time to introduce his vintage Peavey Butcher to the fine art of beer drinking. It went about as well as my first beer. The power tube board was pretty crispy. But these old Peaveys were built tough. After some new sockets and a good scrub we were back in business. In my clumsy excitement I manage to spike one of Rich's old tubes like a football. Fortunately, I had been saving a matched set of NOS Sovtek wafer base 6L6s for a rainy day.
The mighty Crate GFX50 Student Model!! Twin inputs! Twin headphone jacks! Stereo CD input that plays in mono through its one 12 inch speaker?! Or at least it would have if Crate had finished soldering the pins on the power amp transistor. Depending on which way you shake the amp you get either stunning silence or a jet engine roar. You can't teach your students the solo from "Crazy Train" note for note if your amp was left halfway built at the factory.
At one point Musicians Friend was practically giving these away. Knowing that it wasn't worth much, and that it was a step away from being on fire, I would normally suggest that it was time to go amp shopping. But this guy loved his amp and love conquers all, right? As it turns out, the majority of the components inside are repurposed from Kustom's more expensive 'Coupe series. So, worth saving after all! Rebuilt the crispy high voltage supply, replaced the burnt, cheap (also wrong!) stock tubes, and life was restored.
Fender Hotrod Deluxe
I once had a previous employer tell me "all you know how to do is change tubes." I wasn't bothered so much by the fact that he was wrong (my lasagna making skills are unstoppable.) It was more that he somehow thought of the most common and requested bit of maintenance work as unworthy. It would be like telling the mechanic at Speedy Lube "all you know how to do is change oil" without realizing that there were multiple nation wide franchises doing millions of dollars in business all for providing a basic and much needed service. Anyway, all I did to this Fender Hotrod Deluxe was change its tubes.
Marshall DSL401
At some point in its history, someone replaced the notoriously lacking bridge rectifier with an EVEN SMALLER ONE! The resulting heat was enough to melt the hot glue supporting nearby caps which ran across the board and out the tube socket. Glued the tube to the socket and the socket to the board. Also toasted the nearby channel switching relay. Wave soldering is why we can't have nice things around here!
1983 Carvin Series III
1983 Carvin 212 combo. Needed the low voltage supply rebuilt. A common issue with these amps as they age. Everything else was in amazing condition, right down to the hard to find original foot switch. Someone truly loved this thing. A sturdy, American made, 100 watt tube amp for a fraction of what you would pay for a new Fender or Vox import.
Summit Audio 2BA-221
Swapped out some cheap, rebranded, microphonic tubes and also...... um, ground strap anyone? Those should probably be attached to something, right? All in all, a quality piece of gear that just needed a little help.
TE-01
Now it gets weird! Late 90's home-brew tube overdrive pedal. Built with parts salvaged from a 12v wall wart! The majority of components are EPOXIED to the case. This is maybe not the safest pedal ever produced.... But it sounds too good for that to be a problem!
Vox V847
Sometimes all it takes is a good cleaning. Your pedals spend most of their time on the beer soaked stage floor or in the back of a barely running Econoline... And then you step on them. Over and over. A little maintenance can go a long way.
Marshall JCM2000 TSL100.
The output jacks on these are wired in series. So if the 16 ohm out goes bad.... the 8 and 4 ohm won't work either. Replaced the damaged jack and this one roars like it should.
