5/15/2023 0 Comments New fender bandmaster![]() Originality: I acquired the amp in 100% original form. Shortly after, the circuit changed completely to the more common 6G7/6G7-A. ![]() My amp still has the 100% original P10R’s (luckily in 60 years no one cranked this thing, which would have resulted in blown speakers), the grill cloth is identical to the Tweed version, there are no metal protective corners… towards the end of the run (spring 1960, the speakers changed to P10Q’s, metal corners got added, and grill cloth changed). ![]() As you can see, this circuit has the volume knob AFTER the bass and treble controls this leads to the amp being referred to as “centre-volume”. Only a hand full of these amps were produced, a good chunk were returned as the amps more powerful ~45 watts of output was too much for the original 3x Jensen P10R speakers to handle when cranked. It has a 5G7 circuit (see photos and tube chart below). My blonde ash strat pictured below with the amp is coincidentally also dated March 1960 on the body! This is probably the “desert island” guitar & amp combo for me. The date code “JC” on the tube chart, means it was produced in March 1960 (given its specs, it must have been very early in that month, I’ll get into this later). Below is my personal summary on this unicorn of an amp…įor only couple of months in early 1960, Fender created this Bandmaster as a replacement for the 5E7 tweed Bandmaster… switching to the front panel, brown tolex version for the first time. I really hate soldering on those wax dipped SF boards and they have all those dammed wires with the "melt on sight" insulation running all over the place.The model: Before I begin, if anyone else has experience / information with this particular amp circuit, please do share! There is an article in Vintage Guitar magazine on this 5G7 circuit but there are some mistakes/typo’s in it from 2017. I've gotta do a 76 SFTR and I think I'll try the add a pot thing because I can leave the pase inverter as is. Doesn't matter how they look or test even with the right metter they're junk waiting to blowup or shortout at this point. You really can't check an electrolytic cap with an ohms meter but a real low reading is bad.īut i'd just replace them all they're junk anyway. Since this has old filter caps (make sure they're good and drained) check them with an ohms meter for shorts. Or you can keep the balance pot and add a bias voltage pot. You can rewire the stock pot and change a few things on the board in the phase inverter to be like a blackface. Then mod the bias supply so you can set bias. So if you want to use this thing plugged in change out all of those white Mallorys plus all the ones under the "dog house". ![]() Plus the electrolytics from that era suck anyway. Now if you pull say a filiment heater wire and the light dims start looking at filiment wiring.Īlso the worst thing for electrolytics is sitting unused for about 40 years. If you get all them off and it's still bright order a new power transformer.Īssuming of course the power cord and primary wireing isn't shorted. If it's still bright start pulling secondary wires from the power transformer. If the light stays bright keep pulling tubes. Now if the light bulb gets real bright pull the tube from that socket and see if it dims down. Yeah use a light bulb tester it might save a bunch of fuses. ![]()
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