1963 Fender Duluxe - caps

rikk · Post by **rikk** » Mon Mar 13, 2006 7:57 am

I'm restoring a 1963 Fender Deluxe amp so I can sell it and buy a new Ric. I've already replaced the tubes in it, but it still crackles. I think it needs caps. Does anybody know a qualified tech in Western Mass/Northern CT/Southern VT area?

soundmasterg · Post by **soundmasterg** » Mon Mar 13, 2006 5:09 pm

Crackling is often the plate resistors on the preamp tubes getting bad. It can also be dirty pots, loose tube sockets, or a bad solder joint, among other things. Personally I would suspect a loose tube socket and would retension them. You have to know how to work on high voltage amps to do this though or you could seriously shock yourself and possibly kill yourself. So finding a good tech would be a great idea. I don't know of any in your area however.

With an amp like the one you have, it is worth quite a bit of coin, so when wokring on it, or getting it worked on, you want to make sure to do as little as possible to it and still have it work correctly. Some techs will replace all the coupling caps in the amp, but the ones that are in there often sound better and are very reliable too. If they haven't been replaced yet, the electrolytic caps in the amp should all be replaced, but the coupling caps should only be replaced if they are bad.

I can do all this work for you but I'm in Oregon and shipping would cost a lot, so I'd recommend to find a local tech. You may post a question about this on ampage or webervst and see if anyone knows any good techs in that area who are reasonable.

http://www.webervst.com/vstbbs/bbs.html
http://www.firebottle.com/fireforum/fireBB.cgi?cfg=ga&forum=ga&enter=go

rikk · Post by **rikk** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 7:38 am

Greg, Thanks I'll check those sites out.