There is a lot of excitement and adrenaline flowing as you are about to test an electronic device that you've designed and built from scratch. Also, nerves. As mentioned, I had successfully tested the heater wiring, so I did have some confidence, but now the real test was about to happen. I plugged it in, connected a speaker (as you should always do with any tube amp while it's turned on. Failure to connect a load to the output can and will damage your output transformer), and plugged in an electric guitar. Nervously, I turned it on and began turning up knobs.
The good news: very low hum. Little if any sound came out of the speaker at idle. No smoke, sparks, or static. But no music was coming out, either. All that adrenaline that was zooming through me 3 minutes prior was all gone now.
After getting over my initial hopes of just firing it up and it working perfectly, I began to troubleshoot in my mind. After all, what fun would any of this have been if it just worked like it was supposed to? What is to be learned from that?
I turned all the knobs down to zero, and then began to bring them up one at a time. Beginning with volume, I brought it up to about 75%, and voila! Amplified guitar sounds! Bolstered by this good news, I tried some other knobs. The bass and treble seem to work exactly as designed. The volume, while it does work, is not as loud as it should be. In fact, I would say it's about 25% as loud as my actual Vibro Champ. The tremolo, however, does not work. Not at all. The rate control does nothing (that I can hear) and the depth, once turned more than about 5 percent, cuts out all volume. This must have been the original problem I encountered; I think the depth knob was up a bit on the initial test.
Now the real troubleshooting begins. I fear I have a lot of reading and researching ahead of me. Wish me luck.
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