Monday, July 11, 2016

1967 Fender Deluxe Reverb Restoration Project - Part 2

This is a continuation of a restoration project I undertook for a 1967 Fender Deluxe Reverb amp. You can find Part 1 HERE, and Part 3 Here.

New Tubes!

So after a bit of a break, I got back to work. My dad (a retired electronics technician for what was once Bethlehem Steel) called me from a hamfest and said there's a guy with tubes. He asked if I needed any, and after a bit of Q and A, he was bringing home a spare 12AX7, and a matched set of GE 6V6 tubes.

 

Now, these are the originals, in the original boxes (they really are pristine), which makes them 'new old stock' (NOS) tubes. I've done a good bit of reading about these elusive NOS tubes, and although they fetch a pretty high price, it's not really clear that they improve the sound of the amp. Either way I do get the benefit of having a matched set (something the amp was lacking before).

A New Reverb Tank!

This one was a long time coming. I ended up picking up an Accutronics 4AB3C1B reverb unit. It's a two-pring unit with 8 ohms input, and 2250 ohms output. This is as close to the original that would have come with the amp back in the day. I also picked up a cable to go with it. Here are some build notes:


I installed some tie-downs along the left side to keep the wire out of the way. I can still throw some things in the back, without too much concern of tugging on the connector cable.


I ended up having to scour the Internet for how to connect these, as installing was more than trivial, and I didn't want to have to pull it back out to look as the back side of the cover to see which color was input, and which was output.




I did cut a piece of cardboard to fit under the tank. After a good bit of trolling the forums, it seems the originals produced by Fender back in the day had cardboard underneath, so this was just trying to keep in the tradition of 'as close to original as possible'. That said, since the screws are tightly affixed to both the cabinet, and tank cover, I doubt that there is much difference in the sound of the reverb with or without. (I'm working on a post about sound quality that should be out in a few weeks.)