Winter projects stackin up and saying goodbye to a few bits of gear

[gordo]

I just received a stash of the new Aion projects that I'm stoked to build.  I always enjoy Kevin's intensity with his stuff so snagged a set of 4 and some transistors.

I'm also patiently awaiting a good portion of the new MB boards and poised to hit the buy button on those.  Some cool variety and with a bit of parts stash restocking I should be good to go.

I sold off a few pieces this week:  A Hamer 25th Anniversary and a Marshall DSL401.  The Hamer is a hollow Les Paul sized guitar that was loaded from the factory with Seymour Duncan JB Bridge and Seth Lover neck pickups.  I got to speak to Joel Danzig to get the lowdown on this little beast and it was a constant love/hate relationship with this one.  If you're a killer player (I'm not) you can do anything you want with this thing but it has a tendency to be so nuanced that mistakes (my middle name) pop out like crazy.  I've never played a guitar this detailed.

The DSL is a bastard child Marshall.  Honestly, Marshalls don't do well with EL84s but this is a really good amp that was a design problem from the word go.  They had the tubes hanging down under the circuit board and EL84's run hot as is.  If it was a typical tube-up layout there wouldn't be issues.  Of the ones I've worked on it depended on how it was going to be used.  For the casual guys and weekend warriors the repairs that came in would usually mean replacing the bridge rectifier with a beefier version and elevating it above the circuit board and tacking on a heat sink.  For the touring guys I'd put in a fan to move heat off the power tubes.

On the plus side the amps sound really nice once they're dialed in.  I usually replace a few cheap tone caps but can't honestly prove it makes a tonal difference.  And they're easy to work on.  I had to recap the power supply but that's pretty standard on an amp this age.  This one was going to be a personal amp and it started as a dumpster diver.  Really...the original owner tossed it but kept the cabinet!!  I built a head cabinet for it and used fireplace grate instead of grill cloth to provide enough air flow.  I was stoked to start using it in a live setting but my little Peavey 6505mh covered gritty cleans just a tad better and the Marshall just languished.  I hate downsizing...

[destro]

Interesting. I just assumed the marshall dsl series always used el34. A marshall dsl100 was the first thing I purchased with a credit card and it took me a long time to dig out of that hole! Big fan of the Peavey classic series and have thought about snagging one of those micro heads off and on.

Best of luck on your projects!

[jimilee]

That was a lot of words, whose Joel Danzig? The guitar sounded unique but very cool. I need to thin the beard quite a bit, but I can't even imagine parting with them. It's a curse, I guess. On the plus side, I've been buying pedals for the already ungodly collection. So, there's that.


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[aion]

Intensity! I'll take it

[gordo]

That post turned into a babble fest.  And I spelled Danzig's name wrong, it's Jol.

Jimi he was one of the guys that started Hamer.  He's since moved on and does design/consulting work and still builds under his own name.