Skully's First Tube Amp Rebuild- Valve Junior Collaboration

[D.o.S.]

Well fuck, that is just beautiful.

[skullservant]

I'm almost positive that the chassis is here. I had a slip in my PO Box for a large parcel and that's the only thing I can think of. So I'm going to stop by the post office tomorrow before I head to work and pick it up. Going to gut the current valve junior chassis so I can make a drill template for myself as well!

[misterstomach]

i'm really excited to see how this comes out. i've been wanting to get a valve junior and mod it. probably won't go as far as you are, but i'm excited to see what you do.

[skullservant]

Got the chassis in before I went to work today. Seems that they might have sent a power cord instead of the plug, so I emailed them about that. If I can help it, I might try to reuse the original plug from the old chassis as it already has a fuse holder in it

Pictures tonight after I grab the second package that has more parts!

[skullservant]

Just spent all night drilling and working on stuff.



Managed to salvage the old power receptacle so I'm going to use it instead of the separate plug and fuse holder I was going to use.

Managed to get away with only miss-drilling one hole without laying out or finding a template online. Just measured with paper and eyes.
My BIGGEST mistake was not seating the turretboard before I decided to drill the pilot light/lamp. Turns out in it's original position the lamp base would hit the turret board, so like any normal human I hand cut an aluminum washer and polished it and seated the power switch where the lamp was going to be. I need to gauge where the power switch is now to seat the lamp.



Other than that really the only other thing I've got to do besides gauge the lamp hole is finish cleaning up the tube socket holes. I only used a drill, some bits, and a Dremel with 2 attachments to get through the build, and that's why it took so freaking long. Took a solid hour and a half just to seat the power supply into the square hole that I dremeled into submission.




Power supply post drill, pre Dremel:



Post Dremel and seating:



Also recycled the old grommets and mounted them:



Going to use some beefy as hell kind of Orange style, kind of not knobs.



Oh, and note to self, ALWAYS double check before drilling into turretboard from the other side. I drilled into a capacitor, so I had to order a new one to be safe.



Inside of the chassis:




Anyways, like I said just a little bit more drilling to finish up the chassis then I can focus on mounting hardware. Still waiting on my Switchcraft output jacks and now this new capacitor, so I probably won't be able to start wiring until next week.

[AxAxSxS]

Wow man! looking good! I've also experienced the joys of modding a chassis with a dremmel. Good times!
This is going to kick all kinds of ass.

[skullservant]

Thanks man! I'm really glad the plug hides some of the really trashy dremel work. Doesn't help that I was using wood bits on metal, although I found a pretty tough bit that I was able to use. Tonight I'll be getting a circular metal bit and cleaning up the tube sockets and gauging the new pilot hole.

Then after that I'll drop the board in and start mounting hardware!

[ever]

Dayum. Thats gonna look awesome!

[odontophobia]

This makes me want to rehouse the VTM60 in a new chassis and a new head shell.

Then I remember that it's a ton of hard work and I'm bound to fuck it up... plus dem dip switches. fuck it.

[skullservant]

Got an actual washer and gauged it for the switch, looks a little cleaner to me:



Got a new Dremel bit and cleaned up the tube socket holes, also got the iron mounted and did a test fit:



This is with all the hardware mounted but none of the guts hooked up. Still waiting on output jacks though, along with that cap that I drilled into's replacement:



Started the wiring yesterday as well. Just have a few more wires to connect from the power transformer, and then when the output jacks come in, that wiring as well.
Opped to include the master volume mod again as I really can't even crank 5w sometimes in the apartment.

[sonidero]

OH GAWD I CANT WAIT TILL THE PAIRING!!!

[skullservant]

Got the heaters wired last night along with the rectification, and was picking Nick's brain about how I want to wire the light and the switch. Gonna run the heaters to the light and then wire the power switch like normal. I'm hoping I do not need to get a different switch since I only ordered a SPDT. I also gotta find that 6.3v bulb that's around here somewhere....

[skullservant]

Just need three more parts in before I can finish it off and fire it up for the first time

-new DPDT toggle switch for power (will be here tomorrow)
-replacement power filtering cap (will be here tomorrow)
-output jacks (hopefully here tomorrow)

[Ryan]

This looks like about the coolest funnest project ever.. beauty build buddy! I'd like to do something like this too, can I bum a BOM from you? Bet it's gonna sound awesome!

[AxAxSxS]

That's so rad man. I should really try my hand at this. the circuit looks so simple there. Beautiful.