Brought to me by a smashing gentleman Dave, this Deluxe Reverb just
wasn’t doing “the bizz” anymore. It had already had had a power transformer
replacement (not Fender) and wasn’t correct. Dave had brought a Mercury copy
for me to fit for him as, the Mercury copy was the correct replacement for this
model.
Underneath, a very clean/tidy specimen.
The new Mercury transformer.
Super-neat wiring of the replaced power transformer….though I say it myself!!
Dave indulged in letting me do a little mod that I always recommend on any amp. This is to fit a 200k pre-set pot in place of the two plate resistors of the phase splitter, usually an 82k & 100k. This small but effective addition balances not only the splitter tube & associated components, but the output tubes (no matter how many) and any balance deficiencies within the output transformer too. It works wonders!
Here is Dave's e-mail received a short time later:
"Hi
John,
Many,
many, thanks for the repair to my Fender '67 Black Face Deluxe. I don't think
that the amp has ever sounded better. I played around with pre-amp tubes and
I've got a pair of RCA 12AX7's and a pair of CV4024 in the pre-amp section now.
I put in a pair of Brimar Military 6V6GT's and when I checked the bias it was
up at 59 mA, I've got them running at about 25.6mA now and it sounds so creamy,
just breaking up at about five and a half, really warm clean sound, reverb is
superb, really lush Fender.
The
Les Paul's sound really fat and the Tele has everything, haven't tried a Strat
yet but plenty of time for that.The amp has really come to life, what a beauty
it is now it's well again. Thanks very very much indeed, I'm sure this amp will
inspire me to play more! The next project will be the 18Watt Marshall combo
clone.
Many
thanks for the hospitality, coffee and the care and attention to the fine
detail you have given to my amp.