Vintage Fender Deluxe...

[Fitz78]

I was at work today and a patient of mine and I started talking guitars. I mentioned that I have been looking for a tube amp to buy or rebuild. He said he had an old fender amp at home that was broken and that I could have it (b/c he only plays acoustic guitars now). When I finished work, he had dropped off a vintage 1958 Fender Tweed Deluxe!

I plan on trying to fix it up with a friend, but was looking for some advice on where anybody gets good, quality parts for an amp rebuild. Suggestions?

If I get this thing working, obviously I'll give it back...aren't they worth a couple thousand even in crappy shape?

When I tried to fire it up, the tubes did glow....no noise until I tried to play...crackling and a couple notes did get through at normal volume, but I didn't want to harm the amp and force it so I turned it off. Any diagnoses from this limited medical history?

I will try and post some photos soon!
Thanks for any suggestions/replies!
Hope everyone had a good thanksgiving!

Fitz

[blargfromouterspace]

Did the few notes that sounded at full volume come at the beginning of when you switched it on? It may well just need a good clean out of the pots and jacks.

The capacitors may need to be changed if its crackly and not a lot of sound is coming out- consult an expert in your area to do this (I'm assuming that you're not because you've asked where to buy parts). You can hurt yourself pretty bad by messing about inside an amp - there's some very high voltages stored in the capacitors,even when it's switched off and unplugged.

I say fire it up again and see if it continues to work - if you got sound out of it then there's not likely to be much wrong with it. If it starts making a funny noise or smoking, turn it off.

[RickT]

Excellent advice. If it makes noise and nothing is smoking that's a good sign. Most likely the filter caps need to be replaced. Don't try this at home unless you are pretty experienced around tube circuits and high voltage. Unlike a solid state amp, it takes a lot of volts to make those tubes glow. An amp of that vintage should be serviced by a qualified amp tech.

It should be sweet once it's working to spec.

RickT

[milo]

Excellent advice. If it makes noise and nothing is smoking that's a good sign. Most likely the filter caps need to be replaced. Don't try this at home unless you are pretty experienced around tube circuits and high voltage. Unlike a solid state amp, it takes a lot of volts to make those tubes glow. An amp of that vintage should be serviced by a qualified amp tech.

It should be sweet once it's working to spec.

This is the most likely scenario if the amp hasn't been serviced or played in years and you have weak volume and/or excessive hum. If you are the mechanically inclined type and are good with a soldering iron replacing the filter caps is a job you could take on by yourself...as long as you research about the hows and whys of discharging caps, and the consequences of not doing that correctly. The Deluxe is an easy amp to work on with the caps out in the open. It kind of comes down to whether you want to take the time to learn or spend the money right up front with a GOOD tech. I think that the non-electrolytic signal caps from this era also tended to drift in value much more than the later amps. You would probably want to test those for DC leakage. Again, do a little research and ask questions on how to discharge filter caps and test the others for leakage if the filters don't fix everything.

It would be cool to see a couple of good pictures of the chassis with the back panel off. Just don't touch anything inside there until you have read about discharging caps. Taking the back panel off can't hurt you if the amp is unplugged and you don't touch inside of the chassis.

[jamie d]

Fitz,
Congrats on the amp.

Here is the link to The Fender Amp Field Guide; Deluxe with pics and schematic.

There are plenty of resources for amp diy.

Here's a couple.

TDPRI Amp Central

TDPRI Shock Brothers DIY

Jamie

[Fitz78]

Thanks Guys for the advice...a friend of my dad's is a whiz at tube amps...Thanks for the location of the schematic, Jaime. I got that to him and he is collecting the parts. I'm gonna try and post some pics....

fitz