Vibro Champ Pics

Here are some photos of the amp I'm cloning:

Schematic & Layout

The first order of business is deciding which amp to clone. I have several tube amps, but my personal favorite has always been my 1968 Fender Vibro Champ given to me by my uncle. It is the best sounding 6 watts you will ever hear. Plus, I've had it open enough times to determine that the guts look simple enough to emulate on my first outing. 

Here is an image of the schematic obtained from Fender:

 

And here is the layout (also from Fender):

As you can see, this circuit uses two 12AX7 tubes for the preamp section, a 5Y3GT rectifier, and a 6V6GT output stage. Luckily, all of these tube types are fairly common and relatively cheap. A few of the capacitors are going to be hard to find, but with enough digging I should be able to find them.

Between the documentation and the advantage of having a real physical amp to look at, I think we have a pretty good chance of putting this thing together.

Let's get this started

Welcome! This blog is a record of my attempt to make a tube amp from the ground up. I am not an electrical engineer, but my partner in crime is. With my musician (and gearhead) background and his expertise, we hope to have fun and learn a lot along the way. 

As posts progress, feel free to add comments with tips, suggestions, cautions, and warnings. If all goes well, we'll have a working amplifier and we won't Shock Ourselves!