Hi everyone, it's my Fender Twin :) We put it in to get all the valves replaced and there was no budget or minimum spend pressure placed on the repairer. My Dad bought this amp nearly new and has taken wonderful care of it, so we're guessing most of the findings are from recent work. There were some issue post valve replacement which the repairer was trying to sort through and this shows in the approach to cut and re-solder. I asked for the amp back twice when it was clear to us that the repairer was out of his depth, but unfortunately, he persisted to find the issue which looks to have added further cost to this repair. I feel at ease knowing that Brad has it now and we'll be getting back a quality repaired twin reverb..
I’m sure they’re not so fun for you, but I enjoy these videos of an amp that’s been worked on by “special” techs. Always an entertaining watch and I like the Down shirt, NOLA is a great album! 🤘
What a sad state of affairs for the Twin. How any "tech" could let it leave his/her bench in that state is beyond me, even if the budget was limited. The tech would be better off declining the repair. I guess I've been pretty lucky with the Fender amps I have from the 1960's and 1970's. Besides the normal servicing, I've only had to touch up a few solder joints and reverse a questionable mod done to my 1977 Deluxe Reverb. I look forward to seeing you get the Twin in ship-shape.
@@BradsGuitarGarageI’m sorry, $900? For what?! Did he charge $900 for twiddling his nuts between his fingers as he figured which component to cut out and tack solder back in place? That’s just taking the piss.
Even in a down economy, with local techs like that, you will always have work! I fully expect a scorched-earth campaign to get that amp back to proper condition.
Hi Brad, I just sat down and saw the notification, perfect timing! It kind of sucks when one cares and takes pride in their work, and then see that over and over.
Ah, lovely. Re that power switch, I recently just had one that was mechanically no good. Out of curiosity I opened it up and it was in good condition. The original grease had just hardened up on the paddle-spring ball joint thing. It came good with a clean and relube (non-conductive high temp, high viscosity stuff)
Following with intense interest, because I bought a well-used, tired Silverface with the intent of servicing it myself, to grow my skills, being an electronics tinkerer since childhood. I am very wary of the things you bring up in your warnings and share your chagrin at bodginess of some folk. I hope I qualify eventually!
Watched a video of Fran Blanche at Franlab overhauling her old Fender amp. IIRC she had the same problem on her old power cable. From memory, think she said it was PCBs leaching out of the cable insulation? I don't know for sure, but she seems generally well informed about things like this, so you may want to wear gloves, mate?
I recently tried to use 25 year old xlr cable which Id stored in a plastic container. Found 150 feet of it green/corroded all the way along the cable. Had to dump it of course. It’s amazing how the corrosion wicks up the bundle.
Always fun to see your work Brad. Thank you for helping me out the other day on Facebook with that new Deluxe Reverb. Blue wire for a rectifier tube took me by surprise.
That green crap is not from the solder joints. Someone placed that green crap there as a marker. It's some kind of gel but but it's corrosive and I don't know exactly what it is for certain. I've seen it in amps before. I really don't know what the hell it is, but this isn't the first time I've seen that exact green crud in an amp before. And I don't know why they put it in there but apparently it's something that techs used to use for some reason or another years ago. I would definitely do my best to get it out of that ant.Because I know it becomes corrosive and will actually eat through wires.
exemplary explanation as usual Brad! On the "creeping green death" seen on the old PVC insulated copper there are several sulfides of copper that are green but this may be the chloride, atacamite (Cu2Cl(OH)3). This corrosion on the surface likely wont compromise the wires conductivity but will make it very difficult to solder. PE insulation is thus much preferred!
I personally enjoy jobs like this - a good chance to use the skill set but sadly add previous $900 and you have to feel sorry for the customer. Board spacer: *Both boards degrade from moisture, dirt, become conductive and often *microphonic together. The depop, IPA clean etc fix seems widely used but how long before it becomes conductive again? Fender eyelet boards are available, not sure what material they use. I recently purchased a black turret board blank, did design, drill, turrets insert and then measured some leakage (50 to 200 meg between some points) Had to mill slots in the board to save it.... frickin PITA. Next one will be FR4. I'm sure you will do a nice job on this old beast Brad.
Tha amp looked pretty good from the outside. But the inside... for those of us who can't repair our own amps it's quite disconcerting to see what some techs do when we hope for repair!
I guess the owner said keep the original octal sockets. No Beltons? I know you get annoyed, but at least you can fix each problem someone created with bad iron work. I mean, that Boogie was a crazy mess and you licked that........cheers!
Morning everyone!! Im probably wrong (have been before!), l was under the impression this only needed the Tolex recovered? Aah! Never mind, lve just been looking at other comments... Owner's gonna be happy!!
Copper oxide is non conductive the green gunk is a sign that the wire is done for good use . Often the jacket is chemically reacting to produce the green death . This thing need your help the solder looks sad . Good luck with that one.
That green goo concerns me due to it being everywhere. It's almost like someone used cleaning spray on everything. Like Simple Green or similar and it wicked into the wires. What about replacing the diodes on the bias board as well? I know there are two sides to this issue, one being replace if you have a better options, and the value of the amp is originality. So, wouldn't it be a better option to replace the eyelet board with a newer construction fiberglass board with turret style solder connections vs depopulating, de-waxing, iso/alcohol cleaning, repopulating the eyelet board and backer boards? The smaller Bias and B* boards could be changed over as well, or even PCB replacements now that you can order small batch PCB cheaply. Do I get 40 lashes for even suggesting such a thing?
The filter caps under can looked pretty good. Did you use an ESR-70 to measure the value and ESR value, you can lift the earth connection to see if they are leaky. I have found these filter caps to be good quality, the tolerance is good, the ESR value is good and leakage is good. If you replaced these caps with Illinois caps, you would be replacing good caps with poor performance caps. Just saying. 😊
IC brand caps from Digikey / Mouser actually are reliable, but the name is sullied thanks to the cut-rate caps Fender continually sources from them, so I don't use them for anything. Give me some credit, mate. I don't reuse 50 year old caps and nobody else should either.
@@BradsGuitarGarage thanks for your prompt reply, for some reason. I didn’t get notified. I bought the blue IC caps and the ESR value is worse than the caps I was replacing. I returned the IC caps and bought Vishay caps which are excellent.
Yes, Vishay are the best if you can get them. I generally use TAD for all the high voltage axials and Vishay for all the sub-160v stuff. F&T are good too, but some are larger diameter and they're all rather expensive.
What is going on down there mate? What’s with Australia and the silverface abuse? I’ve seen so many wrecked silverface amps on your channel. And yeah, that green shit is a nightmare. After having unknowingly bought a blackface Showman that was infested with that crap I now thoroughly check any Fender amp I’m looking to buy for the dreaded “green slime” before purchasing. It just gets worse, so you gotta rip it all out and start over. Oh and also stains anything it touches forever. What a fun time
Owned a Silverface Twin with the legendary JBL D120 Speakers many years ago. Outstanding clean sound... very bad "cranked" sounds... unable to be moved without breaking your back.
What the fuck was that Twin I had come in about 4 months ago?????? A Super Twin? Yes! I has to twist up a couple of coils for a Mesa style 6 band EQ, (that is one band better than Mesa!). Six 6L6GCs, and close to 160 watts. Thank God it had a 4 ohm output. My small dummy load is 150 watts @ 8 ohms and the big one is something insane like 2000 watts in stereo so two x 16 in parallel = 4000 ohms, and I don't need a space heater or a hernia in summer.
It depends on their location in the circuit. And even then, the difference is very subtle. The biggest issue is that there are no reliable sources of them anymore and they continue to drift in value dramatically and are more affected by humidity and temperature. Carbon film is the better option for many applications where carbon comp would offer some tonal advantages, and metal film are great in the power supply and wherever noise can be an issue such as reverb mix resistors and grid stoppers and plate supplies early in the signal chain, particularly in high gain amps.
@@BradsGuitarGarage word, I figured either way it wouldn't be drastic and most of the difference could just come down to subtle differences in values caused by temperature
Hi everyone, it's my Fender Twin :) We put it in to get all the valves replaced and there was no budget or minimum spend pressure placed on the repairer. My Dad bought this amp nearly new and has taken wonderful care of it, so we're guessing most of the findings are from recent work. There were some issue post valve replacement which the repairer was trying to sort through and this shows in the approach to cut and re-solder. I asked for the amp back twice when it was clear to us that the repairer was out of his depth, but unfortunately, he persisted to find the issue which looks to have added further cost to this repair. I feel at ease knowing that Brad has it now and we'll be getting back a quality repaired twin reverb..
Lucky you. 👍👍👍🇨🇦
"They don't build them like they used to and sometimes that's a good thing." 100% AGREE!
For some reason the more f'ed up the project, the more enjoyable I find it! this will be a treat!
that's why Mesa Boogie is such a good brand. makes for entertaining repairs 🙃
@@doggwoggle true but when you're done, a Boogie is still five pounds of shit in a three pound sack.
@doggwoggle totally agree. I loved that last one and it sounded so good in the end.
Gotta love stumbling into someone’s madness.
I’m sure they’re not so fun for you, but I enjoy these videos of an amp that’s been worked on by “special” techs. Always an entertaining watch and I like the Down shirt, NOLA is a great album! 🤘
FM!! Great previous service!! makes me feel good about myself!! haha
You have immense patience
What a sad state of affairs for the Twin. How any "tech" could let it leave his/her bench in that state is beyond me, even if the budget was limited. The tech would be better off declining the repair. I guess I've been pretty lucky with the Fender amps I have from the 1960's and 1970's. Besides the normal servicing, I've only had to touch up a few solder joints and reverse a questionable mod done to my 1977 Deluxe Reverb. I look forward to seeing you get the Twin in ship-shape.
OMG look at everywhere that previous "tech" went into the amp he melted the insulation.
I’m at 5:26 and I already have Silverface Bingo!
At 12:31 I have diagonal Bingo too.
Almost $900, the customer paid for this shit work.
Fuuuuuuuuuck.
@@BradsGuitarGarage Holy shit... that's insane.
@@BradsGuitarGarageI’m sorry, $900? For what?! Did he charge $900 for twiddling his nuts between his fingers as he figured which component to cut out and tack solder back in place?
That’s just taking the piss.
Even in a down economy, with local techs like that, you will always have work!
I fully expect a scorched-earth campaign to get that amp back to proper condition.
That signal generator is also used as an siren to designate "Beer Time Down Under".
I so love combustible hydrocarbons! I guess the power switch provided hints about the internal combustion situation 🙂
Hi Brad, I just sat down and saw the notification, perfect timing! It kind of sucks when one cares and takes pride in their work, and then see that over and over.
It certainly does suck, mate.
But now the customer has found me, this amp will outlive us both.
G´day mate. Haltron was actually a provider for tubes in England : Hall electric ltd. But not a manufacturer.
Thanks mate! Good to know.
Ah, lovely. Re that power switch, I recently just had one that was mechanically no good. Out of curiosity I opened it up and it was in good condition. The original grease had just hardened up on the paddle-spring ball joint thing. It came good with a clean and relube (non-conductive high temp, high viscosity stuff)
Following with intense interest, because I bought a well-used, tired Silverface with the intent of servicing it myself, to grow my skills, being an electronics tinkerer since childhood. I am very wary of the things you bring up in your warnings and share your chagrin at bodginess of some folk. I hope I qualify eventually!
Watched a video of Fran Blanche at Franlab overhauling her old Fender amp. IIRC she had the same problem on her old power cable.
From memory, think she said it was PCBs leaching out of the cable insulation?
I don't know for sure, but she seems generally well informed about things like this, so you may want to wear gloves, mate?
I recently tried to use 25 year old xlr cable which Id stored in a plastic container. Found 150 feet of it green/corroded all the way along the cable. Had to dump it of course. It’s amazing how the corrosion wicks up the bundle.
Always fun to see your work Brad. Thank you for helping me out the other day on Facebook with that new Deluxe Reverb. Blue wire for a rectifier tube took me by surprise.
My pleasure!
That green crap is not from the solder joints. Someone placed that green crap there as a marker. It's some kind of gel but but it's corrosive and I don't know exactly what it is for certain. I've seen it in amps before. I really don't know what the hell it is, but this isn't the first time I've seen that exact green crud in an amp before. And I don't know why they put it in there but apparently it's something that techs used to use for some reason or another years ago. I would definitely do my best to get it out of that ant.Because I know it becomes corrosive and will actually eat through wires.
What a mess. Excited to see that all cleaned up
exemplary explanation as usual Brad! On the "creeping green death" seen on the old PVC insulated copper there are several sulfides of copper that are green but this may be the chloride, atacamite (Cu2Cl(OH)3). This corrosion on the surface likely wont compromise the wires conductivity but will make it very difficult to solder. PE insulation is thus much preferred!
you can fix the broken top with pocket screws. no removing the tolex. I've had good luck with them on the two I repaired.
That's a bloody good idea, mate!
Bloody hell, thats knackers!
I said, THANKS FOR THE VIDEO!
Oh man. That anger about the eyelets and the cut leads. I feel that in my very soul. WHYYYYY?!?!?
Who knows, mate.
We'll go mad trying to figure out why!
Holy moly! What a disaster. But it has brand new JJs though 😂
We ARE expected to work until we keel over!
I personally enjoy jobs like this - a good chance to use the skill set but sadly add previous $900 and you have to feel sorry for the customer. Board spacer: *Both boards degrade from moisture, dirt, become conductive and often *microphonic together. The depop, IPA clean etc fix seems widely used but how long before it becomes conductive again? Fender eyelet boards are available, not sure what material they use. I recently purchased a black turret board blank, did design, drill, turrets insert and then measured some leakage (50 to 200 meg between some points) Had to mill slots in the board to save it.... frickin PITA. Next one will be FR4. I'm sure you will do a nice job on this old beast Brad.
Tha amp looked pretty good from the outside. But the inside... for those of us who can't repair our own amps it's quite disconcerting to see what some techs do when we hope for repair!
Absolutely.
Showing the difference and being open about the whole process was the reason I started the channel.
I guess the owner said keep the original octal sockets. No Beltons? I know you get annoyed, but at least you can fix each problem someone created with bad iron work. I mean, that Boogie was a crazy mess and you licked that........cheers!
Spoiler alert: it's now got new Belton octals.
copper oxidation out of the hookup wire... yeah that needs to be gone lol
Morning everyone!!
Im probably wrong (have been before!), l was under the impression this only needed the Tolex recovered?
Aah! Never mind, lve just been looking at other comments...
Owner's gonna be happy!!
Copper oxide is non conductive the green gunk is a sign that the wire is done for good use . Often the jacket is chemically reacting to produce the green death . This thing need your help the solder looks sad . Good luck with that one.
That green goo concerns me due to it being everywhere. It's almost like someone used cleaning spray on everything. Like Simple Green or similar and it wicked into the wires.
What about replacing the diodes on the bias board as well?
I know there are two sides to this issue, one being replace if you have a better options, and the value of the amp is originality.
So, wouldn't it be a better option to replace the eyelet board with a newer construction fiberglass board with turret style solder connections vs depopulating, de-waxing, iso/alcohol cleaning, repopulating the eyelet board and backer boards?
The smaller Bias and B* boards could be changed over as well, or even PCB replacements now that you can order small batch PCB cheaply.
Do I get 40 lashes for even suggesting such a thing?
I'm really glad I sent the extra money on a good condition 60s blackface Fender... these 70s amps are a MESS.
Yeah, good move Wes.
But they are great amps once cleaned up and roadworthy.
I'm surprised no has been killed using this amp. _Guitar Eddie
The filter caps under can looked pretty good. Did you use an ESR-70 to measure the value and ESR value, you can lift the earth connection to see if they are leaky. I have found these filter caps to be good quality, the tolerance is good, the ESR value is good and leakage is good. If you replaced these caps with Illinois caps, you would be replacing good caps with poor performance caps. Just saying. 😊
IC brand caps from Digikey / Mouser actually are reliable, but the name is sullied thanks to the cut-rate caps Fender continually sources from them, so I don't use them for anything.
Give me some credit, mate.
I don't reuse 50 year old caps and nobody else should either.
@@BradsGuitarGarage thanks for your prompt reply, for some reason. I didn’t get notified. I bought the blue IC caps and the ESR value is worse than the caps I was replacing. I returned the IC caps and bought Vishay caps which are excellent.
Yes, Vishay are the best if you can get them.
I generally use TAD for all the high voltage axials and Vishay for all the sub-160v stuff.
F&T are good too, but some are larger diameter and they're all rather expensive.
@@BradsGuitarGarage TAD products are very good. I like them a lot.
What is going on down there mate? What’s with Australia and the silverface abuse? I’ve seen so many wrecked silverface amps on your channel. And yeah, that green shit is a nightmare. After having unknowingly bought a blackface Showman that was infested with that crap I now thoroughly check any Fender amp I’m looking to buy for the dreaded “green slime” before purchasing. It just gets worse, so you gotta rip it all out and start over. Oh and also stains anything it touches forever. What a fun time
British tubes per Google
I'll be back
Down 👊😎
YEAH BOI!
Ohoh... a Twin... with a Master Volume... with wheels. Means trouble!
Every time, mate!
But she will sing again.
@@BradsGuitarGarage Definitely! But take care of your back when moving this thing... 😉
Owned a Silverface Twin with the legendary JBL D120 Speakers many years ago. Outstanding clean sound... very bad "cranked" sounds... unable to be moved without breaking your back.
@@tubeworkshopyou got that right. Especially with 2x cast Altec Lansing speakers! Holy Sh*t, mine's heavy!
"it worked fine for 30 or 40 years..." lol
Previous tech work courtesy of Abdul the Butcher.
What the fuck was that Twin I had come in about 4 months ago?????? A Super Twin? Yes! I has to twist up a couple of coils for a Mesa style 6 band EQ, (that is one band better than Mesa!). Six 6L6GCs, and close to 160 watts. Thank God it had a 4 ohm output. My small dummy load is 150 watts @ 8 ohms and the big one is something insane like 2000 watts in stereo so two x 16 in parallel = 4000 ohms, and I don't need a space heater or a hernia in summer.
Huh, Fender claims it's a 185 watt amp.
Oh yeah I do have a 350 watt 8 ohm load too (somewhere). Two 175 watt 4 ohm hair curlers. I use them for 2 ohms in parallel for SVTs.
do you think carbon comps sound better than metal film resistors (assuming it's in the audio path)?
It depends on their location in the circuit. And even then, the difference is very subtle.
The biggest issue is that there are no reliable sources of them anymore and they continue to drift in value dramatically and are more affected by humidity and temperature. Carbon film is the better option for many applications where carbon comp would offer some tonal advantages, and metal film are great in the power supply and wherever noise can be an issue such as reverb mix resistors and grid stoppers and plate supplies early in the signal chain, particularly in high gain amps.
@@BradsGuitarGarage word, I figured either way it wouldn't be drastic and most of the difference could just come down to subtle differences in values caused by temperature
Sheesh. It would be easier to build a new amp
Oof
Shame 🔔
yikes!