It's finally fixed!!!!!!!

[PRSplaya]

I finally got my old early 60's gibson GA-5 amp fixed. A little background on this amp........... My grandad bought this amp for my dad and his brother brand new. neither of them really played it, so it had been sitting in a closed unused for probably over 30 years. After my grandad died I found the amp and of course it wasn't playable, so after having it for a few years, I finally took it to a tech who replaced some little parts and cleaned it up, and now it works fine and sounds great (believe it or not it still has the original tubes!). What this amp is, is a 5 watt combo with an 8" speaker, 2 inputs, 1 volume, no tone controls and uses 12AX7, 6V6, 5Y3 tubes. From what I hear, this amp is supposed to be pretty much the same as an old fender champ. With the 1 and only volume turned about 3/4 of the way up, with my PRS custom 22, it sounds exactly like "Paranoid"-Black Sabbath. Roll the guitar volume down a bit and you get a nice creamy blues tone. Roll it down a bit more and you get a very warm clean tone. I'll do a few recordings of the amp and post them in the recording section so ya'll can hear what it sounds like. Here's what the amp look's like http://www.harmonicamasterclass.com/59-GA5_-_Front.jpg
http://www.harmonicamasterclass.com/59-GA5---back.jpg

[spanky10940]

congrats on gettin it up and running.. I'm looking forward to hearing it!

I've got an older Fender that I'm working on getting back up and running so I understand the excitement especially where it came from in your case... good luck with it...

[PonyOne]

damn that is sweet....

when my dad and i were cleaning out my grandparents' house I found a mandolin from the 1910's. It is absolutely gorgeous. it is an old european style design, so rather than the thinline bodies we're used to, the back is bulbous and teardrop shaped, and is made of inlaid mahogany. the top looks like german spruce, and it has a red abalone inlay below the sound hole that is a gorgeous art deco design. The binding and the details in the abalone are real ivory (!) and the neck has silver mother of pearl inlays of butterflies and little circles with designs in them that are engraved individually. The soundhole is slightly ovoid, which was really popular in that era (god I love Art Nouveau/Art Deco) and the rosette around it is also hand inlaid wood and ivory.

It is amazing to behold the thing; there is absolutely nothing like it made today. My great great aunt used to play it; we have photos of her taken in the 20's holding it. It's an awesome link to a family member I never met from another era that is totally tangible.

I still wish I would have found an old Vox AC30 or Gretsch hollowbody laying around though...

[PRSplaya]

I should have some kind of clip of the amp up sometime this week. just have to figure out what I want to play.............

[spanky10940]

I'll try to do the same with the fender... problem is I need to get a set of 6 matched 6l6gc's to go in this thing first and I think that's gonna cost a few $$'s that I don't have :mad:

but I'll get some pics of it if anyone is interested... hopefully it'll run sometime this summer and I'll make a recording... my first for guitartricks

[PRSplaya]

what kind of fender is it?

I want to change out the tubes in the ga-5 also, but I don't think it's going to cost all that much since it only has 1 power tube, 1 rectifier tube, and 1 pre-amp tube. I would like to put some tubes in that would let me crank it a little more before it starts to break up, which it does very early right now. I also might look into changing out the speaker for one that can handle bass a little better since the neck pup in my custom 22 is pretty bass heavy. Anybody have any tube or speaker suggestion?

[spanky10940]

it's a 1972 Fender Super Twin

This amp is kind of rare from what I read... but it's only a single channel but LOUD as all hell... not too much on the distortion side but a very oud clean that doesn't break up...

so it's got the 6 6l6gc's I think there's 3 12ax7's or x7's not sure, still learning about this stuff...