Installing Replacement Turret Board in Blues Deluxe
Davidson Amp Repair November 2009 - February 2010- Nashville, TN All Photos Copyright Jon Davidson, 2009, 2010 - Nashville, Davidson County, Tennessee, U.S.A.
Please send questions about this project to info@davidsonamp.com. Please put "Deluxe Turret Board" on the subject line. The turret board is available for purchase by advance order only at this time. Unfortunately the amp was picked up by the customer before I was able to make a video demo of the amplifier. It is a straight up Blues Deluxe including lead channel and spring reverb. There is no channel switching because the customer wanted the lead channel only. The circuit is exactly the same as the original amp except that there is no channel switching, and the spring reverb circuit has been changed from the original solid state op amp reverb to a classic Fender tube reverb using the standard Accutronics 4AB3C1B US made reverb tank. The circuit uses only one additional tube, a 12AT7, and because it uses 3 triodes, (1 1/2 tubes), it has the same full bodied reverb as a Blackface Fender. The reverb transformer is the stock Fender type, made in the U.S.A. by Thordarson. The bias circuit has been simplified, and uses a single Sprague Atom 100 mfd 100 volt capacitor. The clean channel is included in the circuit, and as you probably know, the channel switching basically turns a few ground connections on the Volume, Drive, and Master potentiomters on and off. Since this is a repair of an amp, and not a whole new amp, there is no copyright or patent violation. If you are a hobbyist or technician and wish to purchase this turret board, you must sign a statement saying are using it to replace a defective board in a Fender Blues Deluxe. I don't need that statement if I am doing the work since I will document each item as a repair, and of course there's no point in building an amp from scratch with this board anyway. I am doing a small number of complete installations here in Davidson County.
Blues Deluxe Turret Board Rebuild 1, Shows replacement turret circuit board, 716 Sprague Orange Drop Capacitors, U.S. IRC and Dale resistors, Piher Spain bias pot, Sprague Atom cathode and bias capacitors, CDE silver mica 750 pfd and 250 pfd.
Blues Deluxe Turret Board Rebuild 2, Now the the 6.3 VAC heaters have been hooked up.
Blues Deluxe Turret Board Rebuild 3 Shows completed installation in working tube amp.
1961 Fender Tweed Deluxe showing the eyelet board as used on Fender amps in the Tweed, Brown, White, Blackface and Silverface series or roughly mid 1950s through 1980. Fender never used the turret board construction that I used in rewiring the Blues Deville above. Turret circuit boards are used in some early Ampegs, but are most common in mid 1960s English amps including Marshall, Laney, Hiwatt, SimmsWatts, and most famous small production UK amps of the 60s and 70s.Vintage Orange and Matamp used straight PC board construction, with no pots, sockets or switches directly mounted on the PC board, (in other words 'correct PC board'). Vampowers used poorly engineered PC board construction. At any rate, the turret board is not "authentic" as Fender style, but I am only working with turret boards, (U.S. made Keystone), at the present time.
