Thursday report

I was just about to leave the house and couldn't find my keys anywhere - turns out my girlfriend has taken them today We have one of those doors you need a key to close properly so I'm stuck home. Usually I wouldn't mind but there's a ton of stuff I need to do on the computers at uni. Does anyone here use CST software?

Anyway. Lunch today is going to be leftover chicken and bean burritos with the last of our home made chili sauce containing chili and garlic from our garden. It's very satisfying making stuff with things you grow yourself! This weekend we'll be harvesting the turnip crop and pickling them, Lebanese style. You guys growing any fruit/veg/animals for the table? You must have some good crops, it'd be the end of summer up there! Lets see some photos!

Seeing as I'm stuck at home I'm going to attempt to finish off an amp I've been building. A couple of days ago I received a Weber 5E7 (Fender Tweed Bandmaster) kit in the post. I'm just about finished it, I've got it the board and power valve sockets all wired up but frustratingly there were 4 screws missing from the kit so I can't attach all the preamp valve sockets - I'd go and buy some today but no keys to the car means I can't get to the hardware store! It's taken about 9 hours to get to this stage (its my first build) and it is really fiddly work! The chassis is quite tight and getting a soldering iron in to some of the valve pins is a real PITA.

I really like the 50's style Fender amps - I think the 59 Bassman is by far the best in the current affordable (ie not the EC series) Fender lineup. Simplicity is beautiful. Got a favourite amp?

This is my fave, I've shown it before, but I ripped the awful blue tolex off. I like it a lot more now

Last edited by blargfromouterspace on Thu Sep 06, 2012 8:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Howdy Jamie

Does anyone here use CTS software?

No, sorry mate. Can't help you there. You don't use a VPN client so you can connect to your computer at the uni?

You guys growing any fruit/veg/animals for the table?

We have a fairly large backyard with 3 raised beds. The description has to suffice because I do not have pics. In any case, we grow heirloom tomatoes, leeks, celery, kale, fennel, beans, artichoke, herbs, berries, apples, and stuff i might have forgotten. The artichokes we always harvest too late so we let them bloom. Beautiful flowers. I'm in a multi-year project of pruning the apple tree back to a decent height. Every year we get more, but most of them fall from high on up and are mush on impact. Or the squirrels have had them for a meal already ... Foremost I have to give kudos to my wife, because she soes most of the work.

Got a favourite amp?

This is still the one:


- Jos

b] You guys growing any fruit/veg/animals for the table?[/b]

I usually plant a garden, but I never did get around to planting one this year. This summer was extremely dry, so I'm glad I didn't. I did pick apples this evening and I'm making applesauce in the crock pot right now!

Got a favourite amp?

I like simple amps, too! My favorite amp with my G&L's and Telecasters is a '71 Fender, Princeton Reverb. For my PRS, Gibson & Heritage humbucker equipped guitars my favorite amp is a '97 Top Hat, Club Royale.


Sprinter 92

No, sorry mate. Can't help you there. You don't use a VPN client so you can connect to your computer at the uni?

No, nothing like that at my uni. Not that I know of anyway.... And that Boogie is a beautiful beast!

Sprinter - The Princeton is my second favourite of all the amps I've tried. Lovely little things.

You're both lucky to have apple trees, I'd love to have one of them for making cider. Our neighbors have a large apricot tree which is great, but you can bet every dollar that the very day that the fruit goes ripe for eating it'll be eaten by bats

i have several favorite amps. my ceriatone ots gets the most use, but i love my 59 bassman, the 57 tweed deluxe and the 67 ampeg reverberocket. just played a fryette memphis today, and it blew my mind. both the cleans and the dirty. tested it against some carr, mesa mark IV, orange, and bogner. killed them all.
used an asat special deluxe for the testing. what a lovely guitar. it would have been my dream guitar, but for the lack of arm and tummy contours, dfs vibrato and medium jumbo stainless frets. still, the sound was unreal. anything from mayer, to eric johnson, to albert king and some heavier lead and rhythm tones. wow.

Jamie, it sounds like you spent the day in lockup! Glad you had something to work on. I am a day late on this one.

Yes, the gardens are finishing up here in the Midwest. We have Tomatoes that are doing well and we have not had any blight this year, As for farmers crops, the situation is quite dismal due to an extreme shortage of rain in many areas. Corn prices are already way up but we haven' seen anything yet.

The amp kit sounds like a fun project. What are you using for speakers? I agree with you on the 59 Bassman. The old Fender amps were something. Back in the early 60's they were the amp to go to. Everyone wanted a Fender.

There are many amps that you will see that are favorite picks. Mine is still the 65 Twin Reverb Custom 15 for tone. The problem is that it is too heavy. My next amp will probably be an AC15. A lot of people talk about Blues Juniors but I am lusting for an AC15. Thanks for picking up Thursday!--

The amp kit sounds like a fun project. What are you using for speakers?

I'll be using a couple of Celestion Greenbacks that I have lying around, but what I really want is a 15" alnico Weber speaker for something different. AC15s are a damn fine amp at any price point. I played through an original '64 a while ago (with a '59 Esquire... holy grail???) and loved every minute of it. I'm always surprised at how heavy the new ones are for their size! But still they'll be a lot lighter than the Twin with the 15" speaker in it We just got our tomato seed order off tonight, we're growing a few different heirloom varieties this year, can't wait! Nothing beats a tomato straight off the plant

Hey Blarg. Our garden is just about done for the summer. First there were the sugar snap peas. Then the (bush) green beans. Then the summer squash - both yellow and green. The tomatoes did not fare well in the extreme heat of July and August, but we had tons of excellent (Marketmore) cukes. Had a few good Japanese eggplant, and a handful of a variety of peppers. Not bad, all in all. I don't have pictures on the computer I'm typing on, but if I sober up (ha!), I'll post some tomorrow or something.

As far as amps, I like my '66 Vibro Champ for single coil (alnico and small mfd) applications. For big MFDs and humbuckers, I like my Fender Super 60. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it! G'day! - ed

I've been having trouble logging in with my password so this is late. Lunch today was leftover pasta.

My favorite amp was a 90's era Rivera Knucklehead with vintage 30's. However with age comes wisdom so I traded in the bulky amp for a Rivera Chubster 55. Basically the same amp only this has a spring reverb and does not have the vintage 30's. This causes it to be a little to brittle at times. However, it matches very well with my PTB f-100 prototype and with knob turns it also works well with my Legacy's. I've never built my own amp, but I am starting to modify a couple of Epi Jrs. One is planned to become a Fender revrerb tank clone.

It's been a rough year in the garden, but my wine grapes did very well with the heat and long summer in the Midwest. Tomatoes just vined out and stalks were very thin.