It's been a while...

You know when you do something really fun? And the end result is awesome? And then somehow you descend into other spheres of OCD madness? In my case this was a car obsession for a while, then I dabbled in pedals, but I've kind of realized that it has been 5 years since I built the last amp and that's a bit too long... 

Not only that, but I think completely fucking up the power board of the 5150 trying to get it out (they REALLY don't want you to remove it on the first run, i mean, it is literally riveted on WTF) and then messing it up even more thinking I knew what I was doing but then melting the tracks off the board... well, that little experiment cost me a new board from peavey, so i just retolexed the bastard  amp and put it back together with new power board. 

Anyway, you don't want to hear about that, do you, you're not my unknown virtual agony aunt, who I tell of all my woes, you're not my virtual shoulder to weep crocodile tears on in a pathetic attempt to gain some insincere sympathy and all that crap... No, you're here to read my adventures and mishaps as I go for amp build #2! 

So, what is this build then? Well, about 3 years ago or so I bought 3 PCB boards of a nice chap in a trenchcoat in a tube station back in misty London town, in something akin to a drug deal gone geek. After this encounter, and with what looked like (and still do) some very high quality PCBs from a limited run I was convinced I had the get up and go to go off and build. The amp in question? A clone of the Friedman BE100. 

As I didn't have a Marshall style amp at the time, I figured, hey, why not. But then, well, you know, things go wrong, and you start making excuses, and you can't find a suitable chassis, and then you end up too lethargic to order transformers, and then you buy a car with issues and then get obsessed with fixing that, and all of a sudden, years go by... Anyway, Tony (still referred to as the Oracle) just randomly sends me a link to this Russian dude selling a chassis that looks remarkably exactly like the chassis I need. I have been half heartedly looking by this point, but not really that hard, and have been put off by the needing to get a custom faceplate. However, this has it all, it is like the miss world of chassis (at this point at least, we'll find out when we start putting shit in it, i mean, parts). So praise the lords of metal, and one click later at 3am half asleep thanks to ebay I've bought it. Awesome. Anyway, so that arrives, and it is actually pretty cool. May have to drill extra holes, as they don't line up with my board (but if I'd got the boards he is selling it'd have been a perfect fit, so I can't complain, even though whinging about irrelevant crap is baked into human nature). Faceplates look cool too, so it's all good!

Anyway, having got the chassis, I've just placed an order for the transformers from InMadOut, the same source as the ones for the slo clone build. Had them slightly changed, so that I have a 14V tap from the PT to save me adding another small 14V transformer. Whether this is a good idea, I don't know, might be a reason it's separate on the Friedman, but as it's powering relays, probably just some form of cork sniffing. I have no idea, but I guess I'll find out... Regrettably InMadOut wouldn't spray the casing gold for me (probably as they are helping me to not make the amp look like donald trump's bathroom interior) so I've had to settle for matte black instead. Black is good. We like black. It sucks in light, and as everyone knows, black objects go faster and sound better. Fact.

So, what else? I've got to do a order for tube sockets, knobs (either Friedman style or Marshall style I think) and need to get gold tube sockets (not the pins, but the surround, for looks, which will be a waste of money seeing as it's going to end up in a vintage style marshall-esque headshell which has no front grille, but much like a penis extension, I'll know it's there, and that's what matters)

After that it'll be the hate job, ie, putting together the order of components from mouser (or wherever is best now I've fled to Europe), choosing capacitors for cork sniffing reasons, and invariably being over the top and getting components with stupidly tight tolerances that are overspecced. Because, as the Mandalorian says, this is the way.

Anyway, probably be a while before next update, unless anyone gets really excited about unboxing videos, n which case tough, you're going to have to get your weird fetish kick somewhere else, as unboxing videos are invariably awful and an anti-climax (unless, you are that fetish person, in which case most like the opposite)

So anyway, until next time, when hopefully some interesting shit will happen and be written about.