Repair Fails

[caug]

I searched a bit and couldn't find one, so let's see how this goes:

Use this thread to post your repair attempts that don't work! Mistakes and mishaps, bloopers and bungles, snafus and slips, flubs and ...fires?

Did you drop something? Not check that your materials were compatible? Trust someone else's soldering?

My intent here is to be entertained but hopefully some knowledge will get passed around, too.

 

[iiipopes]

Damn bifocals. No pix, because this happened about twenty years ago. I had a Blues Jr. guitar amp I was upgrading with some of the then-popular (and may still be) Bill M mods. I had it sounding great - almost like a mini Marshall. As usual, I wanted to do one more thing. Oops. When I put it back together, the wire that connected something about the preamp main circuit board (I don't remember exactly what) and the wire that jumpered the B+ to the output tube sub assembly were the same color - brown. I accidentally swapped them. In a nanosecond after I turned it on: poof! AHHH! I flipped the switch, but too late. Everything scorched from the filter caps to the speaker. I love the acrid odor of burnt electronic parts in the afternoon (not). All was not lost. I had a spare speaker I liked, and so I gutted the cabinet and it is now a 1X12 open back extension cab for a small Vox guitar combo amp I have. Rock on!

 

[caug]

Someone had painted an old tort 3-ply pickguard black. The horror! I used some CitriStrip to try to get the paint off, but I was a n00b and it turned out the pickguard was cellulose, so it also started melting. I thoroughly washed it off and was hoping I could flatten it with a heat gun and then sand it even. Obviously, I set it on fire. Here is the disaster:

 

[caug]

Damn bifocals. No pix, because this happened about twenty years ago. I had a Blues Jr. I was upgrading with some of the then-popular (and may still be) Bill M mods. I had it sounding great. As usual, I wanted to do one more thing. Oops. When I put it back together, the wire that jumpered the preamp heaters and the wire that jumpered the B+ were the same color - brown. I accidentally swapped them. In a nanosecond after I turned it on: poof! I flipped the switch, but too late. Everything scorched from the filter caps to the speaker. I love the acrid odor of burnt electronic parts in the afternoon (not). All was not lost. I had a spare speaker I liked, and so I gutted the cabinet and it is now a 1X12 open back extension cab for a small Vox guitar combo amp I have.

Brutal. But it sounds like you made lemonade turning it into a cab! A nice, constant reminder to double check work

 

[iiipopes]

Brutal. But it sounds like you made lemonade turning it into a cab! A nice, constant reminder to double check work

Yeah, double checking, triple checking, yes. I probably should have rested and done the last bit the next day when I was rested, but I was so close to being finished....

The epilogue has a happy ending: a friend of mine asked me to make his Blues Jr. sound better. I already knew what not to do, and he wanted more of the Fender vibe than I did. So all I did on his Blues Jr. was to make the reverb a long tail and to change the values of the resisters of the fixed bias to cool off the plate voltage of the pair of EL84's slightly. He likes it so much that for the last decade or so it has been his only stage amplifier. I told him his payment for services was not cash, not beer, not anything else. I told him his payment was to leave it to me in his will. After that session of mods, which was nerve wracking to say the least after my debacle, I decided no more work on amplifiers. No more high voltage. Period. Instrument wiring, sure, and I've even cut that down to one small project every few months. Much less risk if something gets mis-wired. I will not fight the bifocals anymore. Remember the quote of Harry Callahan: "A man has got to know his limitations."

 

[PDW30]

Someone had painted an old tort 3-ply pickguard black. The horror! I used some CitriStrip to try to get the paint off, but I was a n00b and it turned out the pickguard was cellulose, so it also started melting. I thoroughly washed it off and was hoping I could flatten it with a heat gun and then sand it even. Obviously, I set it on fire. Here is the disaster:View attachment 4289042

Call it "relic'd" or "roadworn" and sell it online. Make sure the pics are blurred and don't say how it got the way it is. Be sure to say it's "rare".

 

[caug]

Call it "relic'd" or "roadworn" and sell it online. Make sure the pics are blurred and don't say how it got the way it is. Be sure to say it's "rare".